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Copyright 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
















INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS 
OF CHRISTIANITY 

















INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS 
OF CHRISTIANITY 


OZORA S. DAVIS 

AND 

GRACE T. DAVIS 



ASSOCIATION PRESS 

Nbw York: 347 Madison Avbnub 
1919 





Copyright, 1919, by 
The International Committee op 
Young Men’s Christian Associations 



: EB -0 1919 

©Cl. A 5 1151 6 


To the Memory of 

LIEUTENANT LEONARD B. FULLER 

Student in Wesleyan University, Aviator Without 
Fear, and Christian Gentleman Without Reproach, 
Who Gave His Life in France for the Ideals Set 
Forth in This Book 



FOREWORD 


The following fifteen Studies are designed to present in 
as many forms the international aspects of the Christian 
religion. They are prepared in the spirit of most loyal 
patriotism. True internationalism is the final bulwark and 
warrant of national loyalty. The writers believe that no 
adequate or permanent patriotism is possible unless it lives 
within the range of international sympathy and service. 

These Studies are intended to quicken and fortify those 
who use them to a profounder appreciation of the meaning 
of democracy. We believe that the noblest expression of 
democracy is to be found in the Christian religion. To 
stimulate the study of this as it manifests itself in many 
ways a manual is needed. We hope that such a guide may 
be found in the following pages. 

O. S. D. 

G. T. D. 

Chicago, December I, 1918. 





i 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Foreword . vii 

I. Prophet Patriots . i 

II. The Master Describing His Mission. 15 

III. The Gospel of the Kingdom. 28 

IV. Outside His Own Class. 42 

V. The Apostle to the Gentiles. 54 

VI. At the Interpreter’s House. 68 

VII. Yearnings of the Saints. 82 

VIII. War for World-Wide Salvation. 95 

IX. Made of One Blood. no 

X. The Christian Preacher. 123 

XI. The Philosopher’s Interpretation. 139 

XII. The Christianization of Diplomacy. 151 

XIII. The Songs of the Christian People. 164 

XIV. A Teacher of Good Will. 180 

XV. The Voice of the Churches. 194 






















CHAPTER I 


PROPHET PATRIOTS 

The foregleams of our present ideals and standards of 
righteousness are to be found in the Old Testament. As 
we study the prophets and their message we become aware 
that in this gray awakening of a spiritual dawn there are 
wonderful hints of the great truths that break forth in 
splendor with the coming of Christ. 

There is a freshness and beauty about these morning 
utterances of the prophets not found in the familiar noon¬ 
tide assurances of later preachers. All great truths, when 
first proclaimed, seem miraculous. A great man appears; 
he utters the word; a hidden truth becomes manifest. It 
is a miracle! So it was with the prophets. 

They wrote and spoke in the ages when every nation 
lived unto itself. Everyone outside a man’s own country 
was to him either an enemy to be feared or a despised 
being fit only for bondage. A god, whether Baal or 
Moloch, was god only for a particular place. 

It was an era of pitiful limitations and consequent suf¬ 
fering. Only a few great souls—we call them prophets— 
were able to understand just how sordid it was and to 
bring a new vision to their time. We study some of these 
this week. 

Daily Readings 

First Week, First Day: The Omnipotent God 

Ah, the uproar of many peoples, that roar like 
the roaring of the seas; and the rushing of na¬ 
tions, that rush like the rushing of mighty waters! 

The nations shall rush like the rushing of many 

I 


[I-i] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

waters: but he shall rebuke them, and they shall 
flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the 
mountains before the wind, and like the whirling 
dust before the storm.—Isa. 17: 12, 13. 

The people of Palestine were surrounded by enemies. 
In addition to the great empires of Assyria and Egypt, 
there were other, smaller, hostile, neighboring nations, 
which often proved a most serious menace. One of the 
most powerful of these was Syria, with its proud and 
wealthy capital, Damascus. 

The Syrians did not worship the God of Israel; but they 
were apparently conquering. The children of Israel were 
consumed until only a few were left, just as corn is gath¬ 
ered ear by ear by the reaper, or like ripe olives when only 
two or three are left on the top of the uppermost bough. 

But when they had suffered to this limit, Israel, the 
prophet said, would look to God, as people are always likely 
to do in time of trouble. “Their eyes shall have respect 
to the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 17:7). And when the 
people shall have come to such a feeling of reverence— 
then, behold! God will manifest himself' with mighty 
power. Then men shall know that his power is over all 
the world alike. 

Omnipotence! The word is only an empty shell if God 
is not supreme in all the universe, Lord of all the nations. 
And the time shall come when his power shall be ex¬ 
pressed: the peoples shall “be chased as the chaff of the 
mountains before the wind.” 

It is the greatness and power of God that warrant our 
faith in a world that is united in a common nature and 
destiny. Isaiah understood this and announced the great 
truth with majestic insistence. His words are like the 
rush of a great tempest, lashing the waves into fury. “At 
eventide, behold, terror; and before the morning they are 
not” (Isa. 17: 14). 


2 


PROPHET PATRIOTS [ 1 - 2 ] 

But it is the power of God also that brings peace, and 
at last the calm of the Omnipotent descends upon the 
nations, like the peace of sunlit, quiet seas after a great 
tempest has passed away. And so the universe rests within 
the compass of the almighty power of God. 

First Week, Second Day: The All-Approachable God 

Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple 
of Jehovah, the temple of Jehovah, the temple of 
Jehovah, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend 
your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly ex¬ 
ecute justice between a man and his neighbor; if 
ye oppress not the sojourner, the fatherless, and 
the widow . . . then will I cause you to dwell 
in this place, in the land that I gave to your 
fathers, from of old even for evermore.—Jer. 
7 : 4 - 7 - 


When our theologically inclined ancestors were assem¬ 
bling their Latinized list of divine attributes beginning with 
omni they should have added one more—owm-approach- 
able. Israel had the notion that to them had been given 
the only system of religious etiquette by which a human 
being could venture to approach to the Divine. Only one 
who had sacrificed in the temple at Jerusalem could be a 
recipient of favor in the royal court of heaven. Cere¬ 
monies came to possess almost a magical power. 

But Jeremiah—poor, baited, imprisoned, wise, unshak¬ 
able Jeremiah—declared that this was not so. He had 
had sufficient experience with the corruption that honey¬ 
combed the royal court life at Jerusalem. He knew the 
hypocrisy of the temple worship; and he declared that true 
loyalty of heart and the doing of justice between men is 
worth more than all sacrifices and ceremonies. He told 
the people that they could come to God without turning 
toward Jerusalem or assuming any especial posture. 

3 


[1-3] 


ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

“They kneel who pray: how may I kneel 
Who face to ceiling lie, 

Shut out by all that man has made 
From God who made the sky? . . . 

I look into the face of God, 

They say bends over me; 

I search the dark, dark face of God— 

O what is it I see ? 

I see—who lie fast bound, who may 
Not kneel, who can but seek— 

I see mine own face over me, 

With tears upon its cheek.” 1 

Nearer than our own face God waits, ever close to hear 
the faintest whisper of the soul. 

First Week, Third Day: The All-Beneficent God 

Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians 
unto me, O children of Israel? saith Jehovah. 
Have not 1 brought up Israel out of the land of 
Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the 
Syrians from Kir ?—Amos g : 7. 

Over and over again the Israelites rehearsed in their 
songs and narrated in their histories the story of their 
wonderful deliverance from Egypt. It was visible proof 
to them that they were peculiarly dear to God, his children 
in a sense in which no others could claim that right. As 
the darlings of the Almighty they were the masters of 
spiritual privileges that the other races did not possess. 

But the prophet Amos had another conception of the 
matter. He saw in his mind the Israelites escaping from 
their captivity; but he saw also those who pursued after 
them, the children of Egypt. They, too, are the children 
of God. 

1 Grace Fallow Norton, " Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph’s." 

4 



PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-4] 

And then he recalled the neighboring nations also, who 
had come from other homes to occupy their present lands. 
The Philistines had come from Caphtor and the Syrians 
from Kir. Is not their present territory a promised land 
to them also, even as Palestine is to the Hebrews ? 

Amos fairly thundered his reply. The Lord God of 
Hosts is Lord over all people, beneficent toward every 
nation, leading each by his divine love and wisdom to its 
own appointed dwelling-place on earth. 

Hebrew, Philistine, and Syrian; French, Russian, Pole, 
and Armenian—'there is a promised land intended by the 
Lord God for each of them. Again and again one race 
has enslaved another, one nation has encroached upon the 
rights of another. But this is the work of men and not 
the will of God. This does not indicate any unkindness in 
the purpose of the God of the nations. It is the desire of 
the All-Beneficent that each nation shall dwell in peace 
with all the others on the good earth that he has made; 
that each shall have its part in the treasure of mines or 
fertile fields, forests or prairies. God means that the 
nations, thus sharing and exchanging these good gifts of 
earth with one another, may live in mutual helpfulness, 
all of them at peace and each enjoying the common bless¬ 
ings of its God-given land “flowing with milk and honey.” 
If they do not do this, it is not the will of the God who is 
good to all. 

First Week, Fourth Day: The All-Just God 

Yea, he scofifeth at kings, and princes are a de¬ 
rision unto him; he derideth every stronghold; 
for he heapeth up dust, and taketh it. Then shall 
he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over, and 
be guilty, even he whose might is his god. . . . 

For the vision is yet for the appointed time, 
and it hasteth toward the end, and shall not lie: 

5 


[I- 4 ] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely 
come, it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed 
up, it is not upright in him; but the righteous 
shall live by his faith.—Hab. i: io, n; 2:3, 4. 

Does might make right? The same old question burned 
for reply back in the days of Habakkuk. It was about the 
year 600 B. C. and the Chaldeans had left the valley of 
the Tigris-Euphrates, carrying out their plan to conquer 
the world. What a terrifying experience it must have 
been to live in one of the cities of Palestine during these 
years and watch the oncoming of the Chaldean terror, 
realizing that each day it was drawing nearer to one’s 
beloved home! 

Nothing seemed able to stop the enemy. “Their horses 
also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than 
the evening wolves; and their horsemen press proudly 
on: yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an 
eagle that hasteth to devour” (Hab. 1:8). This is a 
picture of the invasion of cavalry that cannot be surpassed 
by any modern narrative from Belgium or Russia. 

And was his might the sign of his right? Was his 
strength and success indeed the proof of divine coopera¬ 
tion? Habakkuk answered the question with an imme¬ 
diate negative. “We must be patient,” he said; “the 
enemy may be proud and lifted up, but he is not right; 
though the vision tarry, wait for it.” “The righteous shall 
live by his faith,” and at last “the earth shall be filled 
with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the 
waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2: 14). 

This is a great sentence, filled with truth for our time, 
“The righteous shall live by his faith.” In their relation¬ 
ships nations as well as individuals must also live by their 
righteousness and faith. Brute force never has finally 
determined right and it never can; on the other hand, 
the only kind of might that finally prevails is the right. 

6 


PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-5] 

Thus the integrity of a nation is more important than its 
physical power or material wealth. 

The only faith that will carry our nation through the 
perils of war and the tasks of reconstruction is the un¬ 
swerving confidence of the people in righteousness. Right 
cannot be worsted and wrong cannot triumph in the end. 

First Week, Fifth Day: One Lord and One Temple 

And Jehovah shall be King over all the earth: 
in that day shall Jehovah be one, and his name 
one. . . . And it shall come to pass, that every 
one that is left of all the nations that came against 
Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to wor¬ 
ship the King, Jehovah of hosts, and to keep the 
feast of tabernacles.—Zech. 14:9, 16. 

The prophet Zechariah belonged to the priestly family 
of Iddo; therefore he was trained in all the details of the 
laws and ceremonies of religion. At the same time he 
had a wide acquaintance with men, for probably he had 
lived many years in exile and had acquired an intimate 
knowledge of the commercial life of Babylon during that 
time. 

He saw that the only religion that can satisfy the soul 
permanently and endure is one that includes all men. As 
a priest, he naturally thought that this universality must 
find expression in the common worship of mankind in one 
temple. He saw but dimly the full meaning of his vision. 
It was necessary for Jesus to release it into the true realm 
of universal validity, as he did when he said: 

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true wor¬ 
shippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for 
such doth the Father seek to be his worshipers. God is 
a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit 
and truth” (John 4:23, 24). 

It was, however, a great step in advance of his age for 

7 


[1-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Zechariah to assert that any foreigners, Gentiles, should 
ultimately have a part in the temple worship. Perhaps he 
saw in imagination some of his old Babylon friends beside 
him, celebrating joyfully the feast of tabernacles and 
acknowledging with him the same Lord as God. 

It is impossible for us, if we come personally to know 
and love men of other races, not to crave unity in faith 
and adoration for the perfection of our friendship. For 
we know that the complete unification of humanity de¬ 
mands the fusion of a common religion. The God we 
adore, the friend we love—side by side we must worship 
and thus be made one in the highest act of life! Happy 
are we all, if we only can realize that, continents apart, in 
temple or in busy street, God is equally near to us both, 
and that, turning to him, whether in formal phrase or in 
silent thought, we may be one in God, we in him and he in 
us. Nothing less than this will make wars cease and 
bring the golden age to men. 


First Week, Sixth Day: The All-Merciful God 

Now the word of Jehovah came unto Jonah the 
son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that 
great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness 
is come up before me. . . . And God saw their 
works, that they turned from their evil way; and 
God repented of the evil which he said he would 
do unto them; and he did it not.—Jonah i: i, 2; 

3: 10. 

The call to missionary service came to Jonah directly 
from God himself. Many Hebrew prophets had been 
sent to their own people to utter the warnings of the 
Lord; but none had been thus sent to the enemy’s city 
itself. No wonder that Jonah shrank from his task, 
thinking of all foreigners as the Jews of his time did! 

8 


PROPHET PATRIOTS [ 1 - 6 ] 

But when he had given his warning and the people had 
repented and the All-Merciful God had forgiven them 
their sins, Jonah was angry at this apparent over-indul¬ 
gence of Jehovah. God set forth the reason in the 
wonderful argument of the gourd: 

“Thou hast had regard for the gourd, for which thou 
hast not labored, neither madest it grow; which came up 
in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I have 
regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more 
than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern be¬ 
tween their right hand and their left; and also much 
cattle?” (Jonah 4:10, 11). 

The book of Jonah, with its symbolism, so strange to 
our Occidental minds, contains one of the noblest lessons 
in the Old Testament. It is tragic that this truth is so 
obscured because men fret over the precise literary forms 
in which it is expressed. This story of the pitying, merci¬ 
ful God forgiving the sinning heathen city shows us how 
God’s mercy is all-embracing because he loves all the 
children of earth. 

It is quite probable that the book was written not far 
from the time of Ezra, and it may have been a protest 
against the narrowness and bigotry of the age. At the 
very time when the people were being warned against 
foreign marriages and when the emphasis upon national 
interests was stressed to the utmost, one man dared to 
write the story of the foreign missionary, Jonah, and the 
way in which he was forced to understand the truth of 
the love of God for all mankind. So the book becomes a 
prelude, crude and almost grotesque in parts, as it seems 
to us, of that great motif of the New Testament, “God so 
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have 
eternal life” (John 3:16). Jonah is a fore-gleam of 
the universal Gospel of Christ. 

9 



[ 1 - 7 ] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

First Week, Seventh Day: The All-Satisfying God 

For from the rising of the sun even unto the 
going down of the same my name shall be great 
among the Gentiles; and in every place incense 
shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offer¬ 
ing: for my name shall be great among the Gen¬ 
tiles, saith Jehovah of hosts.—Mai. I: II. 

In the words of this last prophet of the Old Testament 
we find the most broad-minded, generous outlook upon the 
whole wide world. Jehovah is not a jealous divinity, 
busied with the interests and successes of one little nation 
in Palestine. From the farthest East to the farthest West 
all nations are to worship him upon a multitude of altars. 

And all the nations will finally acknowledge his sway, 
not because they have been crushed into an unwilling sub¬ 
jection, but because they have found him to be the perfect 
object of their reverence and love. The warring nations 
had worshiped Moloch. The mystery-loving Egyptians 
had erected temples whose hidden inner courts veiled the 
rites of Astarte. There were a Venus and an Apollo for 
the beauty-loving Greeks, and a Mars and a Jupiter for 
the Roman legions; but God, the Lord of all, is the All- 
Sufficient in the beauty and glory of his majesty to meet 
the desires of all the nations. 

The artist may find in him the creator of the rose and 
of the mountain ranges in their grandeur; the Puritan 
may find in him justice and truth; the mother knows him 
to be the gentle and loving Father of all; the sinner dis¬ 
covers in him a merciful and pitying Redeemer. 

In giving his lectures to the people of India, Rev. John 
Henry Barrows said, 

“The Christian faith is the outgrowth and culmination 
of Judaism; its doctrine of a universal divine kingdom 

io 


PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-c] 

is a republication of the teachings of Israel’s greater 
prophets.” 2 

We have studied certain of these great statements, con¬ 
nected with the fact of God. How true it is! All the 
best hopes that we cherish for the final unity of humanity 
are foreshadowed in these great yearnings of the seers of 
long ago. 

The reason why we wait with confidence for the final 
drawing together of all the children of men is that God 
is the one Creator and Lord. And in the end there will 
be a pure offering of love and service, because all races 
shall find that God is worthy of their reverence and adora¬ 
tion. 

Comment for the Week 

Let us hear one more voice from the prophet patriots 
that sums up the impressions that we have been gather¬ 
ing during the daily studies this week. It comes from 
one of the greatest of these heralds of the dawn. 

In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to 
Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the 
Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall worship 
with the Assyrians. 

In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with 
Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; for that Je¬ 
hovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt 
my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel 
mine inheritance.—Isa. 19: 23-25. 

This is an amazing statement when we think of the age 
when it was uttered and the type of mind to which it was 
spoken. The last phrase was familiar and welcome. The 
Israelites understood perfectly that they were the inher¬ 
itance of Jehovah and they were forever boasting about it. 

2 “ Christianity the World Religion,” p. 49. 

II 



fl-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

But now comes a man who dares to associate the names of 
Egypt and Assyria with the name of Israel. He even 
dares to go on and call Egypt the people of Jehovah and 
Assyria the work of Jehovah’s hands. 

Let us think of this for a moment! It is as if in one 
of the most partisan periods of the life of any nation, when 
the people were at war with a nation of foes, struggling 
for life, a preacher or poet should have the audacity to 
tell them that God is the Father of their foes and that he 
has a purpose of good for the world that is some time to 
be worked out together by those who just now are seek¬ 
ing each other’s destruction. In such a situation only a 
bold man dares to speak. Only a truth that has utter 
reality in it can stand the strain of such a situation. But 
thus Isaiah spoke and the truth which he told his people is 
slowly coming to be realized as the only final and vic¬ 
torious principle to guide human life into permanent polit¬ 
ical and social forms of expression. 

The great truths that we have thus studied were not de¬ 
clared in their fullness at first. It could not have been 
otherwise. Zechariah had a limited conception of the pos¬ 
sibility of a unified worship. The story of the great mis¬ 
sionary to Nineveh is marred by incidents that provoke so 
much discussion that they obscure the lesson of the book. 
But the men whom we have studied rise, in their insight 
into the deepest meaning of life, like mountain peaks above 
their contemporary levels. 

They define the ranges and lay the foundations for those 
fundamental principles which we shall study in the com¬ 
ing weeks. These principles are connected with the nature 
and the will of God. If God is the Creator and Lord of 
all life, then man’s relationships to man, and nation’s 
relationships to nation, must be estimated and determined 
according to the character and purpose of God. We never 
can understand our full duty toward our neighbor until 

12 


PROPHET PATRIOTS [I-c] 

we realize that we owe our existence alike to God and 
think out clearly the attitude of the heavenly Father to 
us both. This is the practical meaning of those aspects 
of God which we have brought forward: his limitless 
power, his unfailing kindness, his impartial justice, his all- 
embracing mercy, and his desire that all men should wor¬ 
ship him truly. 

To these foundation principles we shall turn again and 
again as we proceed to study their fuller expression and 
fruitage in the ever-broadening Christian life in the world. 
We may come to see that the statesman Isaiah was the 
forerunner of our John Hay. The inspiration of the book 
of Jonah helped to make possible the lives of David Liv¬ 
ingstone and Dan Crawford. The visions of Ezekiel and 
Malachi were among the dim and ancient causes of the 
ecstasies of St. Francis of Assisi. 

This means, in short, that the only real foundation for 
an international conception of life is religion. And there 
are always forces at work in religion to make it narrow 
and seclusive. Religious agents are conservative. Reli¬ 
gious beliefs tend to become exclusive. There is grave 
peril in this; it ought to be seen and guarded against. We 
do no service to our cause by covering up the perils in¬ 
volved in the tendency to pharisaism in our presentday 
Christianity. We may be misunderstood, but in the end it 
will be best to speak plainly. There is a tendency to inter¬ 
pret life in the terms of universal good will among earnest 
and thoughtful people today. Will religion share in this 
movement ? The situation has been stated in this way: 

“It is to be remembered that it is dangerous to become 
international in these other relationships if we do not at 
the same time make our religion international.” 3 

The Prussian idea has shown us what a narrow and 

8 J. Lovell Murray, “ The Call of a World Task,” p. 52. 

13 



[I-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

scornful nationalism can do in the world in the way of 
mischief. But the parallel of the Prussian idea in politics 
is the exclusive sectarian idea in religion. It calls the 
stranger a pagan and prides itself that it never has eaten 
anything common or unclean. 

But now we may hope that we are passing from the 
period of parochial, partisan, sectarian life and thought 
into a new era. As President Charles Cuthbert Hall said: 

“As they [the sectarian forms of Christianity] them¬ 
selves were born in the turmoil of a great age of religious 
emancipation, so it may be that they shall give place to 
some yet more magnificent reinterpretation of the ideal 
of Christ, born in the travail of the momentous time that 
lies before us.” 4 

If, therefore, we may look ahead to some nobler recon¬ 
struction of the forms of the Christian faith in the time 
immediately ahead of us, it is necessary that we under¬ 
stand these first foreshadowings of those guiding prin¬ 
ciples that must shape the new order. Vaguely formulated, 
dimly perceived by the masses of men, these shadows of 
mighty truths appear athwart the consciousness of man¬ 
kind in the far-off past, the dim definition of those regnant 
principles which were to be revealed in the light of Jesus 
Christ. Gradually the gray of the dawning revelation 
brightened until the morning broke with the song of good 
will to all the nations; we live in the hour of high noon, 
when we must walk in the light of this truth. 

4 “ Universal Elements of the Christian Religion,” p. 9. 


14 



CHAPTER II 


THE MASTER DESCRIBING HIS MISSION 

As we begin the closer study of the international aspects 
of Christianity we must first of all see how the Master 
himself thought of his work and of the Cause which he 
left for his friends to carry on. Jesus never went into 
elaborate descriptions of his mission; he spoke in familiar 
figures regarding himself and his work. These are more 
satisfactory than detailed definitions would have been. As 
we study them we are impressed first of all with their 
range and inclusiveness. Jesus never gives us an analogy 
without enlarging our conception of the universal values 
in his nature and mission. Only seven of these have been 
chosen; but they are enough to show us that Jesus inter¬ 
preted his own life in the terms of international good will. 

Daily Readings 

Second Week, First Day: The Good Shepherd 

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lay- 
eth down his life for the sheep. . . . I am the 
good shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine 
o\yn know me, even as the Father knoweth me, 
and I know the Father; and I lay down my life 
for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are 
not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they 
shall hear my voice; and they shall become one 
flock, one shepherd.—John io: n, 14-16. 

It is a pity that we do not know more about the life and 
work of a shepherd, in order that we might understand, as 
did the men and women to whom Jesus spoke, the wonder- 

15 


[II-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ful tenderness and beauty of this figure. While of course 
the strict interpretation of the illustration points only to the 
responsibility of the shepherd for an individual flock, the 
end of the quotation is a vivid picture of the many 
flocks folded in one place and in the care of the one great 
shepherd of them all. The figure as it is developed strikes 
straight at the heart of all little notions of the particular 
flock, and defines the meaning of life in the terms of the 
fold. 

This does not exclude the difference in the separate 
flocks that are folded in; it only includes the various 
groups in the larger unity. And it gives us a glimpse of 
the shepherd as caring for the individual needs of many 
sheep while at the same time he plans for the welfare of 
the whole fold. It is another example of that unity in 
variety which makes up the true group everywhere. 

Second Week, Second Day: The Bread of Life 

Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he 
that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that 
believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said 
unto you, that ye have seen me, and yet believe 
not. All that which the Father giveth me shall 
come unto me; and him that cometh to me I will 
in no wise cast out.—John 6: 35-37. 

We come today to a second of those universal figures 
by which Jesus sought to express the meaning of his life 
and mission to earth. Bread is the universal necessity of 
the physical body. It must be had if we are to live; the 
humblest and the highest alike claim it for the needs of 
life. So Jesus takes this fact and makes it a sign of his 
own value to the souls of men. 

Just because it is so common and so familiar, we often 
overlook the meaning of bread in the life of every day. 
Once let it fail, however, and we begin to understand how 

16 



THE MASTER DESCRIBING MISSION [II-3] 

imperative it is and how we must have it or we die. We 
let it be wasted in time of plenty; but we understand its 
value in time of war and famine. 

In this same way we often let the meaning of Christ’s 
life and mission suffer neglect when our days are pros¬ 
perous; but if the time of distress comes we lay strong 
hold on the sources of comfort and help that are always 
to be found in him. 

How this comes out in the literature that the war has 
developed! Such a sense of loyalty to Christ was created 
in the camps and trenches as the world has not seen since 
the days of the first faithful witnesses in martyrdom. 
Thomas Tiplady writes: 

“After the war the Church will have a new and supreme 
opportunity—the finest history has provided. But it must 
prepare for it; and the only adequate preparation is a fresh 
study of the life and teaching of Christ. This must be free 
from both prejudice and cowardice. We must neither 
twist his words nor water down his teaching. We must 
obey his commands as a private obeys his captain, no 
matter where they may lead, or what sacrifices they may 
involve. The cultivation of such creative virtues as 
humility and charity, accompanied by absolute loyalty to 
the teachings of the Gospels, would give the Church the 
undisputed leadership of the world. Our soldiers go to 
mutilation and death at the word of a second lieutenant. 
Shall we shrink from equal loyalty to Christ ?” 1 


Second Week, Third Day: The Light of the World 

Again therefore Jesus spake unto them, saying, 

I am the light of the world: he that followeth me 
shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the 
light of life.—John 8: 12. 

No other figure could be richer in its meaning or mor$ 


* “ The Cross at the Front,” p. 107. 

17 



[II-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

universal in its application than this. Through the whole 
physical world it is the light that sustains life in every 
form. The sun is the center of our material universe. 
Without it we perish; the measure of its energy that we 
enjoy determines the quality of the life we live. 

This is the great figure that Jesus took to explain the 
meaning of his own nature and mission in the world. And 
we cannot discover the central meaning of the figure ex¬ 
cept as we interpret it in its universal relation to the phys¬ 
ical universe as we know it. The key word is all. 

How the light reveals the meaning of the world to us! 
It uncovers all the beauty and the wonder of nature as the 
sun rises each day. Without it we would grope our way 
through an unknown world that would hurt us at every 
turn. But with the sun to show us where to go we take 
our path into the unknown with courage. 

How the light quickens all the dormant forces of life 
and calls them into being! Countless seeds wake at the 
touch of the light as the sun climbs higher, and a world 
that has been cold and apparently dead clothes itself in 
myriads of living forms. 

How the light sustains all the world! It is the ceaseless 
energy that makes steady the stream of life. It undergirds 
and perpetuates the whole world that we know and upon 
which we may depend. 

Now the outstanding fact about this light is its uni¬ 
versal character. No class has a monopoly of it. This is 
what Jesus must have had in mind when he said that the 
Father “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). 

And the light therefore becomes the fitting symbol for 
the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. He is the Lover and 
the Leader of all men. He, too, reveals and quickens and 
sustains every soul that will bind itself in loyalty to 
him. 


THE MASTER DESCRIBING MISSION [II-4] 

Second Week, Fourth Day: The True Vine 

I am the true vine, and my Father is the hus¬ 
bandman. Every branch in me that beareth not 
fruit, he taketh it away: and every branch that 
beareth fruit, he cleanseth it, that it may bear 
more fruit. ... I am the vine, ye are the 
branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the 
same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye 
can do nothing.—John 15:1, 2, 5. 

We often read this passage carelessly, as if Jesus had 
said, “I am the stock and ye are the branches.” But this 
is precisely what he did not say. The words are most 
significant as we have them clearly given. “I am the 
whole vine,” Jesus says. That is, Jesus and those who 
believe in him are so united in spiritual fellowship that 
they are truly a part of himself. So he cannot speak of 
his own personality as complete apart from those who 
share it, because he has entered so intimately into them 
that each has become a part of the other. This idea may 
se«jm at first glance to be one of those mystical conceptions 
of life which find little or no warrant in the actual facts as 
we know them. 

But it is not so uncertain as it seems. To think of the 
living Christ as including in his being the spirits of his 
followers is no more mysterious than is the fact that the 
principle of life animates any material body. If that un¬ 
known something which makes a rosebush can lay hold 
upon the physical cells and unite them into the beautiful 
thing which we call a rose, it is possible for the spirit of 
Christ to lay hold upon mankind and build into a real or¬ 
ganism the souls of those who respond to the claim of his 
spirit. 

So this figure of the vine is an example of universal 
relationships and unity. It expresses the fact that Christ 
is the great universal Soul that lays hold upon others and 

19 


[II-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

unites them into fellowship with himself. Jesus is not for 
one age or class or quality. He is the supreme and com¬ 
prehending Master of all loyal souls. 

Donald Hankey has put the matter in these words: 
“Something is wrong, and an ever-increasing number of 
men and women within the Church are feeling that all 
this strife and controversy [going on between denomina¬ 
tions] is beside the point; that what we want to do is just 
to drop all these questions, and to get back to the main 
point, which is, after all, to embody Christ.” 2 

Second Week, Fifth Day: The Way 
I am the way.—John 14:6. 

To reach God is the goal of life and Christ is the way to 
that supreme end. The Great War has shown us the vital 
importance of communication. The roads that were built 
behind the lines were the necessary means by which the 
mighty campaigns were carried on. One of the resources 
upon which the Germans have relied with success in their 
conduct of the war has been the mobilization of all their 
means of communication in the interests of their army. 
One of the greatest problems that America had to face was 
the fact that we were so far from the arena of war and 
were obliged to rely upon the dangerous ways on sea 
and land to bring our troops to the place where they could 
be utilized to win our victories. 

Jesus would seem to have realized the significance of 
this fact in the spiritual life when he said that he was the 
way to the Father. The soul that is fighting the battle for 
its highest life must not be kept far from the heart of God. 
There is a ready and safe way into the very personal 
experience of Jesus Christ, our brother-man. 

But the blessing of a road is that it is not laid under 

* “ Faith or Fear,” p. 29. 

20 



THE MASTER DESCRIBING MISSION [II-6] 

the limitation of private ownership and tolls. The great 
highways of the world are open to all the people. This is 
the central significance of this figure as applied to Jesus 
Christ. He is the universal Way. The poorest woman in 
a village in India and the most learned man in an Amer¬ 
ican university can find the path leading directly to the 
Father through Christ. It is this universal aspect of the 
great figure that has been put so beautifully into verse by 
Alice Meynell: 

“Thou art the Way. 

Hadst Thou been nothing but the goal, 

I cannot say 

If Thou hadst ever met my soul. 

I cannot see— 

I, child of process—if there lies 
An end for me, 

Full of repose, full of replies. 

I’ll not reproach 

The road that winds, my feet that err. 

Access, approach, 

Art Thou, time, way, and wayfarer.” 

Second Week, Sixth Day: The World’s Life 
I am the life.—John 14:6. 

This is the final figure in that triplet which Jesus used 
to explain the meaning of his character and mission. It 
is useless to seek for a definition of life. We know what 
life does , but we do not know what it is in any complete 
sense. Living forms demand that they shall be in right 
relations to the world about them. When this relation¬ 
ship is cut off, these forms perish; when the relationship 
to the supporting means of life is maintained, these forms 
grow and finally originate the germs of future life. 

There is no better way in which to understand the mean¬ 
ing of Christ’s mission to the world than to interpret it as 

21 


[ 11-73 ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the means by which all men are enabled so to come into 
the right relationship with their surroundings that they 
will be enabled to live the highest life. 

Christ himself is the great example of the perfect life. 
The way in which he conducted himself day by day among 
men is the proof that the complete life can be lived. But 
this is not the entire meaning of the life of Jesus. He 
certainly promised that he would come into the lives of 
all men in such a way that they, too, would be given the 
vision of the complete life and furnished with power to 
realize it. This success was conditioned upon their com¬ 
plete trust in Christ at all times. This promise has been 
accepted by millions of persons and they have testified to 
the fact that the promise is true. When we yield our wills 
to Christ, strength comes to our feeble human powers and 
we are able to do what we had failed to accomplish with¬ 
out this vital relationship with Christ. 

If Europe and America had been under the control of 
the spirit of Jesus Christ, the Great War could not have 
been possible, simply because the selfishness and hatred 
out of which it has grown would not have been possible. 
Christ is the true life of all the world; and humanity never 
will find the way to live the complete life until it is united 
in love and loyalty to him. 

Second Week, Seventh Day: The Universal Power of 
the Cross 

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto myself.—John 12:32. 

The cross was an instrument by which condemned 
criminals were put to death in one of the most cruel forms 
ever devised on earth. It was a public and terrible means 
of expressing man’s condemnation of all that was con¬ 
trary to the highest welfare of society. 

22 


THE MASTER DESCRIBING MISSION [II-7] 

The life and death of Jesus took this instrument of 
shame and made it the supreme symbol of suffering and 
universal love. It changed an instrument from which 
sensitive minds turned with a shudder to the shining em¬ 
blem toward which eager eyes strain with passionate 
yearning. This is one of the most striking examples of 
what the mission of Jesus accomplished on earth. 

This universal attraction of the cross is one of the most 
astonishing facts in connection with Christianity. No 
wise man would have thought it possible; yet it is the one 
supreme and outstanding peculiarity of the religion of 
Christ. That which was for the moment his shame has 
become his glory and power. There is something in the 
fact of his death which wins the admiration and love of 
the world. 

We all know that redemption through the sacrifice of 
suffering love is the central fact in the deepest experiences 
of which humanity is capable. Every home witnesses to 
this truth. Love saves when it suffers. When all argu¬ 
ments have utterly failed and when appeals to all other 
motives have broken down, the claim of a love that suffers 
because of the wrong that another has done has redemptive 
power in it. Commander Eva Booth of the Salvation 
Army speaks to hardened men of the “pure and tender 
stream of mothers’ tears,” and voices an appeal in those 
words that could never be evoked by all the threats con¬ 
cerning the penalties that must be paid for broken laws. 

And that which is true in the holiest relations that we 
know in human life is much more true in the supreme re¬ 
lations that we bear to the Father of all. When the fact 
of his suffering for human sin became concrete in the 
anguish of Christ on the cross, an attractive power was 
discovered that must ultimately bring the world under its 
sway. And so the cross, the unique fact in the Christian re¬ 
ligion, is also the truth of universal moment and meaning. 

23 


[II-C] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Comment for the Week 

The central thought in the passages that we have studied 
this week is the Master’s interpretation of his own work 
in the world. How much depends upon the way in which 
we view our own life! The fundamental ideas which we 
hold concerning the value and nature of our work may re¬ 
main unnoticed, quite in the background of our thinking; 
but they are there, none the less powerful because we are 
unconscious of them. In fact, the greatest and strongest 
motives in our lives are seldom the ones from which we 
act deliberately; they are the purposes which lie under¬ 
neath the areas of conscious thought. No child is accus¬ 
tomed to say repeatedly, “I love my father and mother 
and therefore I will do this.” But it is because of love to 
father and mother that all his finest acts are done. So 
beneath our best deeds the great motives of life are un¬ 
consciously at work. 

Jesus interpreted the meaning of his life in the terms of 
universal human well-being. He did not think of his 
character or work as embraced in the attainment of any 
purely personal ambition or the accomplishment of any 
individual task. His life was to have value to all the life 
of the world. This is the plain meaning of the great 
figures which he used to describe himself and his task. 

The apparent absurdity of such universal claims strikes 
us at once. Jesus was an uneducated and humble man 
from a small town in a conquered province. The great 
rabbis in Jerusalem or the emperor at Rome might well 
have thought or spoken of themselves as persons whose 
life and work were to be of universal significance. But 
Jesus of Nazareth had as little evident warrant for making 
such a claim as would a village carpenter in any American 
community today. 

And yet, as a matter of fact, this humble Nazareth 
24 


THE MASTER DESCRIBING MISSION [II-c] 

Teacher and Helper of others has been just what he him¬ 
self said he was to become. The whole world has been 
drawn to him by the splendor and power of his words and 
his deeds. The influence which he has exerted has been 
greater than that of Plato or of Caesar. That which 
seemed to be arrogance or supreme conceit has turned out 
to be positive truth. 

Now we cannot, of course, exert any such influence in 
the world as Jesus of Nazareth has exerted. But the 
spirit in which our work is done may be the same as that 
which guided him; and the final value of our personal 
influence and service will be determined, as his was, by the 
way in which we think of our life. We can assign its own 
value to the work which we do arid the influence which we 
exert in the world. 

This principle is so important that we must dwell upon 
it briefly for the sake of clearness and emphasis. We are 
inclined to think that the quality of our life is primarily 
determined by the circumstances in which we live. Of 
course it is instantly apparent that this was not true in 
the case of a prophet like Amos or of Jesus of Nazareth. 
We think of them as exceptions, however. But they were 
not exceptions. Circumstances impose conditions upon 
us which sometimes make life narrow and hard. But there 
is a power in the human will which can rise supreme 
above circumstances, break the barrier of a repressive en¬ 
vironment, and create a new world in which the victorious 
spirit shall express itself with power. 

Note how this was true in the case of Abraham Lincoln. 
There was nothing in his inheritance or surroundings that 
indicated the universal character of his sympathies or 
inspired him to devote himself to the welfare of his coun¬ 
try and comrades as he did. The young man dared to in¬ 
terpret his life in the terms of good will and service to the 
oppressed. Out of that brave and clear-visioned ideal he 

25 


[II-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

brought the patience and courage which stood by him dur¬ 
ing the long struggle with poverty and opposition until 
finally he became the Emancipator. Thus men, by God’s 
help, are the masters of their fate and achieve what they 
will in spite of every hostile circumstance. The spirit 
defies adversity and dares to undertake the apparently im¬ 
possible under the spell of such an ideal. 

The Great War has given a fresh opportunity to inter¬ 
pret individual life in the terms of its universal relation¬ 
ships. Lieut. Coningsby Dawson wrote from the trenches 
on February 6, 1917: 

“This war is a prolonged moment of exaltation for most 
of us—we are redeeming ourselves in our own eyes. To 
lay down one’s life for one’s friend once seemed impos¬ 
sible. All that is altered. We lay down our lives that the 
future generations may be good and kind, and so we can 
contemplate oblivion with quiet eyes.” 

Those words were not written in the seclusion of a 
literary artist’s study. Lieut. Dawson was writing in the 
mud and misery and death of the trenches and every word 
was packed full of real experience. This is the interpre¬ 
tation of individual life which thousands of young men 
were brave enough to make under similar circumstances. 
How clear it is that they were trying to express the same 
ideal that brought Jesus of Nazareth out of the obscurity 
of a carpenter’s life in Nazareth and sent him forward 
without wavering to give the “last full measure of devo¬ 
tion” at Calvary! 

This has been a central truth in the Christian religion 
from the beginning. There have been times, it must be 
frankly admitted, when the Christian Church has been 
more concerned with the preservation of its privileges 
than it has been to discharge its obligations to its age at 
the cost of personal sacrifice. But those have been the 
hours of weakness and failure. Christian leaders have 

26 


THE MASTER DESCRIBING MISSION [II-c] 

been sensitive to this fact and have not hesitated to call 
the Church back to its primitive and permanent task. The 
great reformers have had this in common, that they have 
restored the Church to its primary ministry to human 
suffering and weakness. 

But the great challenge of this truth comes straight 
home to the conscience of the young man and woman who 
is ready to live according to the noblest ideal. Are you 
ready to interpret your life in the terms of the world-wide 
needs of your generation? Or, if this seems too vague, 
are you ready to accept the concrete duties that will ad¬ 
vance the happiness and welfare of the community? Will 
you bear your part in civic duties, even at the cost of 
personal sacrifice? Will you make your contribution in 
time and service to the charitable institutions of the com¬ 
munity? Will you give money and personal endeavor to 
the church with which you are connected? Will you re¬ 
spond to the claims of the foreigners in your neighbor¬ 
hood and not let them suffer from neglect and isolation? 
These are definite avenues through which the altruism 
of the Christian religion can be brought to bear upon 
human life. Service of this kind takes the great figures 
which Jesus used to describe his own work in the world 
and translates them into the language of generous deeds 
and useful duties which convince the world that the Master 
of the Christian people is not dead in a Syrian tomb, but 
is alive even now in the busy life of the twentieth century. 
Jesus called himself the Light of the World; but he also 
said to his followers, and to us through them, “Ye are the 
light of the world” (Matt. 5: 14). 


27 


CHAPTER III 


THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM 

When Jesus talked with individuals and groups about 
the meaning of life and his own work in the world, he not 
only used the figures that were familiar to them, but he 
made immediate connection with the subjects about which 
they were accustomed to think. His countrymen had been 
yearning for the coming of the “Kingdom of Heaven,” 
which was, simply explained, the rule of Jehovah in all 
human affairs. John had declared that this kingdom was 
immediately at hand. Surely this was “good news” to 
a people who were experiencing the degradation of their 
pride in the Roman tyranny. Jesus not only accented the 
message of John, but he told the people of his home town 
that the coming of the kingdom was connected with his 
own life and work. This was the beginning of the message 
and program of true internationalism in the terms of 
Christianity. 

Daily Readings 

Third Week, First Day: The Herald 

From that time began Jesus to preach, and to 
say, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand. . . . And Jesus went about in all Galilee, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of 
disease and all manner of sickness among the peo¬ 
ple.—Matt. 4:17, 23. 

And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of 
heaven is at hand.—Matt. 10: 7. 

The word “preach” does not well represent the simple 
28 


THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-i] 

idea in the term used to describe the way in which Jesus 
talked with the people. It was like the task of the herald, 
who carried good news to those who were waiting eagerly 
to hear how their cause was faring. This good news was 
truly an “evangel/’ and the expression of it was simple, 
urgent, and glad. It was quite unlike a modern sermon, 
formally prepared and delivered as a part of an order of 
worship. 

How is this good news? It means that, since God reigns 
in the universe, the moral values of life, the highest wel¬ 
fare of humanity, are eternal and will triumph at last. 
There may be many adversaries and the struggle may be 
long with victory deferred; but we are not fighting a losing 
battle in our effort to be good and our struggle to do 
right. We are on God’s side; goodness, justice, and truth 
are destined to conquer. This Messenger tells us also that 
in all the ranges of the higher life mankind is one. There 
are differences in race and custom; there are degrees of 
civilization; but it is not true that the differences between 
the lowest and highest civilized man are greater than those 
between the lowest man and the apes. Mankind is united 
in a spiritual kingdom of which God is the King. The 
essential and eternal principles of this are found in some 
form in all races and individuals. And so we hear the 
message of moral victory and human brotherhood from 
its supreme Herald, Jesus Christ. That kind of news is 
good. 

Is it good news today? Yes; it is more needed than 
ever before, more vital and strong. Tired by struggle and 
dismayed by the wreck wrought through its own terrific 
energies, humanity needs now to hear the message that 
Jesus brought to men. To understand this Gospel and to 
pass it on is the great service that we can render our gen¬ 
eration. One does not need to be a minister or a mission¬ 
ary to become a herald of the kingdom of God. The 

29 


[III-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

merchant, the farmer, the housekeeper, and the student are 
each divinely commissioned, in the words of the Herald, 
to preach the Gospel in a world that will still listen to 
honest and living words. 

Third Week, Second Day: The Scope of the Kingdom 

All authority hath been given unto me in 
heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make 
disciples of all the nations.—Matt. 28:18b, 19. 

Every organized form of government must be based on 
authority of some kind, and the kingdom of God, as Jesus 
proclaimed and founded it, rests in the right of Jesus Christ 
to rule the spiritual life of all mankind. There could not 
be a supremacy more reasonable and acceptable than this. 
Study the records of the life and work of Jesus. There is 
not an act or a word that is harsh, except the hot denun¬ 
ciations of the Pharisees, and these we would not change. 
The authority of Jesus is that of right and winsome ideas 
and conduct. 

On this ground he commissions his disciples to go to all 
the nations. Obviously nothing less than an international 
message can be presented with any hope of acceptance to 
all the nations. If the most highly developed and the 
least advanced nations are to be reached by the same mes¬ 
sage, it must be one that embraces all the hopes and long¬ 
ings of humanity. It must have something to say regard¬ 
ing sin, forgiveness, courage, hope, and immortality. It 
must find the universal heart of man. 

This phrase “all the nations” is one that we use easily 
and with a certain satisfaction of our instinctive desire 
for brotherhood and unity. But it is not easy to repre¬ 
sent to our minds and hearts all that is involved in the 
idea. It includes them all, the sons of the icy North and 
the care-free inhabitants of Southern islands. It em- 

30 



THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-3] 

braces the warrior races and the servile people. It was 
meant for the Romans of the first century and for the new 
China of tomorrow. Such endless variety of human ideals 
and attainments! Can there he any one truth vast, varied, 
and compelling enough to match them all? Yes. The 
kingdom of God backed by the spiritual authority of Jesus 
has this power and can meet successfully all these varied 
needs. 

But it takes a sympathetic and loving preacher today 
as never before to bring the sovereign truth of the kingdom 
to “all the nations.” No small or lukewarm soul can lay 
hold on this truth or successfully transmit it to men. Only 
a kindled soul can set others aflame. Let us think the 
situation through until our minds and hearts glow with the 
consciousness of the scope of this ideal. Then the Chris¬ 
tians of all the world will rise together. Then the Church 
will answer the challenge: 

“Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious; 

Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way.” 

Then the Great Commission will be fulfilled and the Lord’s 
Prayer will be answered. 

Third Week, Third Day: The Law of the Kingdom 

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in 
heaven, so on earth.—Matt. 6:10. 

For whosoever shall do the will of my Father 
who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and 
mother—Matt. 12: 50. 

Every kingdom must have its laws. What are the laws 
of the kingdom of God? The two passages above indicate 
them in their universal meaning. 

First, when the will of God is done on earth as it is in 
heaven, we shall have attained the ideal of the kingdom. 
Instantly it will be said, But who knows how the will of 

31 


[III-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

God is done in heaven ? That is a realm of which we have 
no concrete knowledge. Therefore to locate the standard 
of earthly life in a heavenly state of which we know 
nothing is to reduce the entire conception to unreality and 
impossibility. But we do know how God’s will is done in 
that state of perfect love and complete knowledge which is 
attained in the heavenly life. Love and wisdom enable the 
heavenly citizens to obey happily and constantly the will of 
God. There is no rebellion or delay, because God’s will is 
known to be good and his commandment to be right. This 
is not idle fancy. It is legitimate reasoning from what we 
know about love and knowledge in our earthly life. When¬ 
ever a human law is known to be right and when the love 
of lawmakers and citizens for the highest welfare of the 
community may be depended upon, then obedience follows, 
immediately and fully. This will come to pass in the uni¬ 
versal kingdom of God. 

Again, this defines the ground on which the ideal rela¬ 
tions of life are based. It is not the accident of physical 
kinship which determines the most fundamental and en¬ 
during relationships of life. We did not choose into what 
human family we would be born; but we may choose 
whether or not we will be citizens of the kingdom of 
heaven. Jesus knew that the relationships of the world 
must have a deeper basis than the accident of birth or the 
superficial warrant of a ceremonial act. So he announced 
the new basis of human unity and brotherhood. Who¬ 
ever would enter deliberately into filial relationship with 
God and establish the fellowship of loyal hearts that inev¬ 
itably grows out of it, became by that act a member in the 
truest sense of the real human family. 

Therefore the essential unity of human life is brought 
about through obedience to the heavenly law. Men and 
women of different races and tradition are all able to love 
and serve God and one another. In this way, obeying the 

32 


THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-4] 

fundamental laws of the kingdom, they make humanity 
one. Laws do not separate men into discordant groups; 
obedience to the law of divine love unites them in the uni¬ 
versal human brotherhood. 

Third Week, Fourth Day: The Privileges of the King¬ 
dom 

Verily I say unto you, Among them that are 
born of women there hath not arisen a greater 
than John the Baptist: yet he that is but little in 
the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.—Matt. 
11:11. 

Membership in a social group guided by noble ideals 
must necessarily bring privileges to the individual. Jesus 
affirms that the supreme moral and spiritual advantages 
of life are bestowed upon those who are members of his 
kingdom. Without discussing the proposition itself, con¬ 
sider how it bears upon the international unity of mankind. 

The old idea of force was that the world could be united 
by compulsion, in which the strong should force them¬ 
selves upon the weaker as their masters. The way in 
which to make a bale of hay is to compress it into form 
by external force. 

But this is only the temporary and perilous way in 
which to bring about unity. The inner strain is always 
there seeking to match the outer stress. Humanity re¬ 
sponds only to the forces of good will and sympathy in the 
long run. The final hope of unity lies in the granting 
of privileges rather than in the imposition of laws. This 
does not mean that laws are unnecessary or that force 
has no place in the organization of the world. But we are 
to go to the least developed people with gifts that will 
enrich and ennoble them, and this is the incentive and 
joy of the herald of the kingdom of God. 

33 


[III-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

We carry the privilege of hope and courage. The world 
is bowed under a load of physical need. “It is estimated ; 
that in Asia and Africa more than 200,000,000 always go 
to bed with hunger unsatisfied.” Under such conditions 
men need encouragement. Where will they find it? The 
Gospel of the kingdom has worked for the removal of eco¬ 
nomic despair more steadily and strongly than any other 
single force. It continues to give hope to a despairing 
world. 

It brings knowledge to a world that is in bondage to 
superstitious fear. The universe is terrible in its crush¬ 
ing energy and cold vastness. Who can blame the savage 
for believing in a horde of spirits and worshiping “stocks 
and stones” ? But the Gospel of the kingdom declares that 
the universe is on our side and not against us. It tells us 
that even death is a friend and that pain disciplines rather 
than destroys the soul. The great discoveries of modern 
science have been made in the lands where the Gospel of 
the kingdom is known; this is not an accident. And it is 
the duty of men who know to inform the men who are 
ignorant of all this. 

Third Week, Fifth Day: The Obligations of the King¬ 
dom 

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye 
know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over 
them, and their great ones exercise authority over 
them. Not so shall it be among you: but whoso¬ 
ever would become great among you shall be your 
minister; and whosoever would be first among you 
shall be your servant: even as the Son of man 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
and to give his life a ransom for many.—-Matt. 

20:25-28. 

The relation between rights and duties always has 
caused debate and friction in human thinking. It is a 

34 




THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-6] 

natural trait to insist that one shall have his rights; it is 
not so common to find equal insistence upon the truth that 
men shall perform their duties. Jesus put the duties of 
his kingdom first. 

What a clear modern parallel we have to the way in 
which the kings of the Gentiles “lord it over them”! The 
Prussian despotism, coming to its supreme expression in 
the “All Highest” Kaiser and court, gave us a perfect 
background upon which to see in clearest definition the 
laws of the kingdom of God and the obligations resting 
upon its members everywhere. These are summed up in 
the simple word “service.” Jesus had no desire to save his 
own physical life, to preserve its comforts, to rest at ease. 
From the first act of his public life he “went about doing 
good.” And one cannot do others good by sitting com¬ 
fortably at ease. It costs life and treasure to do good. 
Life has to be freely given if other lives are to be en¬ 
riched. Jesus gave his life not only in the supreme expe¬ 
rience of meeting physical death, but from the dawn of his 
public ministry in deeds of week-day love and kindness. 

This is another mark of the universality of the king¬ 
dom. Human want is everywhere. There are varieties of 
need among men; but the unsatisfied cravings of man are 
universal. It might almost be accepted as a definition of 
man that he is a creature of ever-increasing needs. The 
comfortable cow in the pasture is a creature of few needs 
and those she has are easily satisfied. But man desires 
always more and more until he attains perfection. There 
is no danger, then, that there will not be enough human 
needs to warrant the members of the kingdom in giving 
themselves in service. The call for help is constant and 
universal. 

Third Week, Sixth Day: The Growth of the Kingdom 
The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, 

35 




[III-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

which a woman took, and hid in three measures of 
meal, till it was all leavened.—Matt. 13:33. 

And I say unto you, that many shall come from 
the east and the west, and shall sit down with 
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom 
of heaven.—Matt. 8: 11. 

Jesus never thought of the kingdom of God as a mechan¬ 
ical or provincial affair; he always defined it as vital and 
universal. It was made up of living persons and it was 
world-wide in its intention. These two truths are clearly 
expressed in the concise and vivid parable of the yeast. 

Fermentation is a vital process. It is by the indefinite 
duplication of life that the process is carried on. Unless 
organism is creating organism the process ceases. And in 
the same way the kingdom of God is extended throughout 
the world. No device ever has been found that can take 
the place of human influence and personal contacts in ad¬ 
vancing the kingdom. The individual who has been fired 
with the ideal and passion must come into relationships 
with other individuals and in this way the kingdom grows. 

A still more significant truth about the yeast in the 
dough, however, appears in the fact that “it was all leav- 
ened.” In order to make good bread the yeast must pene¬ 
trate the entire mass of dough. To have spots unleavened 
is to have bad bread. On the other hand, thoroughly 
“raised” dough insures good bread, at least so far as the 
action of the yeast is concerned. 

How clear is the application of this law to a community, 
or to the race as a whole! We cannot have sections or 
spots untouched by the moral and spiritual ideals and 
forces that insure the highest welfare of the entire b#dy 
without involving the whole in danger. If the men whose 
homes are on the boulevards permit conditions dangerous 
to the physical or moral health of the community to exist 
“across the tracks,” the day will come inevitably when 

36 




THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-7] 

their own children will be smitten with pestilence. There 
is no escape from the law which binds us together for 
good or for ill in the commonwealth of humanity. 

India and Africa are far away from free and enlightened 
America; but the evils tolerated there finally engender 
evils here by inevitable law. Only when we become aware 
of this fact and insist upon our responsibility for all the 
world, will the kingdom come to bless the world. 

Third Week, Seventh Day: The King 

Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king 
then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a 
king. To this end have I been born, and to this 
end am I come into the world, that I should bear 
witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the 
truth heareth my voice.—John 18:37. 

There could be no sharper contrast imagined than that 
between a Roman Emperor and a King of Truth, as Jesus 
conceived and illustrated his authority over the souls of 
men. The Roman insisted upon external power and official 
privilege; Jesus laid emphasis upon inner motive and 
obligation to serve. The Roman was on the watch for 
what he could gain; Jesus was alert to discover what he 
could give. The Roman depended for the permanence 
of his power upon the physical forces that he could muster 
to his standards; Jesus relied upon truth and love to 
insure the continuance of his kingdom. 

Thus Jesus becomes the universal King, because the 
foundations of his kingdom rest finally and firmly upon 
love and truth. These are universal qualities and the spir¬ 
itual order that rests upon them never can pass away. 
One who depends upon the force of fleets and armies must 
realize that a time will inevitably come when greater 
armies and fleets than he controls will .defeat his forces. 
But any person who is trusting his cause to love and truth 

3 7 


[III-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

never can be defeated, because to be overcome by a greater 
love is not a defeat but a victory. To find our incomplete 
truth overcome by a truth that is more nearly complete is 
to share in the triumph of truth itself. Jesus is the su¬ 
preme King because he is the King of Love and Truth. 

Comment for the Week 

There is no better single word than Service by which 
to sum up the whole subject of the kingdom of God. The 
very genius of the Herald and the spirit of the King are 
expressed in this term, for Jesus said, “I am in the midst 
of you as he that serveth.” Note how this word fits the 
other items that we have studied day by day: the law of 
the kingdom is service; the privileges and duties of the 
kingdom are both realized through service; and the king¬ 
dom grows or extends itself by means of service. 

We have naturally looked to the great moral and reli¬ 
gious teachers for statements on this fundamental subject; 
but just now remarkable expressions of this law of the 
kingdom are coming from the leaders of the nation in 
time of war. In a character sketch of Charles M. Schwab 
in The World’s Work for July, 1918, this successful and 
virile American is reported as saying: 

“Making money is no longer the prime concern of 
American business. It is a question of service now, and 
we are all serving under the same banner of freedom and 
democracy. 

This is a theme that I am very fond of, because I believe 
in it to the limit: The aristocracy of the future will not be 
the aristocracy of birth or of wealth, but of men who 
serve, who do things for their country and their fellow 
men. The great prize to be won by men of ambition 
today is not money, but recognition as members of the 
aristocracy of service; this aristocracy that is open to 
every man, instead of the old dead and gone aristocracy 
that was open to those of particular birth or great wealth.” 

38 



THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-c] 

Of course it is instantly clear that an ideal like this de¬ 
mands for its background and warrant the fact of human 
unity and cooperation. No such ideal has any real stand¬ 
ing ground apart from an international consciousness. 
Service is the finest possible expression of the international 
mind. It makes all life one great partnership for the com¬ 
mon good . As Mr. Schwab is reported in the same article 
to have said, ‘‘Nobody ever worked for me, but many 
thousands have worked with me.” Those prepositions are 
small words, but they are great with meaning. 

Working together for the commonwealth therefore be¬ 
comes a practical expression of the purpose and program 
of the kingdom of God, as Jesus defined it and made good 
with it in his own daily life. How this ideal instantly 
enlarges our conception of religion! Right acts are no 
longer interpreted as religious because they are “devo¬ 
tional.” Actions become truly religious when they are 
useful. As a result of our training and conventional stand¬ 
ards we tend to think that when a person is sharing in the 
public worship of God, reading his Bible, or saying his 
prayers, he is religious; but when one is performing a 
laboratory experiment, tending a machine in a factory, or 
dusting a sitting-room, one is engaged in secular work. 
But that old and mischievous distinction is fast disappear¬ 
ing. We are no longer able to divide the world so easily 
into the secular and the sacred. The classification does 
not stand. Whatever act has a religious purpose becomes 
thereby a religious act; and surely the aim to advance the 
welfare of humanity and make God’s will the law of com¬ 
mon life is religious. God is worshiped in more ways than 
by our formal prayers. Deeds done for God are changed 
into prayers by the holy intention that consecrates them. 

How could we better please the Creator and Lord of all 
life than by using all the gifts with which he has entrusted us 
for the service of the world which he has made and loves ? 

39 


[III-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Naturally the question arises at once, But how can my 
life, lived in a small place and under narrow conditions, 
be made to perform any real service for a vast world that 
I never see or touch ? The statesmen, the merchant 
princes, the authors of international reputation can serve 
the vast world; but this is impossible for a student, a 
farmer, or a village merchant. And yet, however difficult 
it may be to justify the statement by a concrete proof, it is 
nevertheless true that a farmer who raises a better crop 
this year through improved methods and greater industry 
has made a real contribution to the welfare of China. His 
wheat and corn have provided the means of life not only 
for himself but for men and women whom he never will 
see and who never can thank him for the service that he 
has rendered to them while he planted and cultivated and 
reaped in the little place far away. His work does not stop 
at the village elevator or the distant city; it goes on and 
on until in literal fact it has touched the world with its 
beneficent influence. 

Sometimes it seemed to us a mere fancy that the leaders 
of the nation should have laid such stress on the possi¬ 
bility of the war being lost or won at home. In one of 
the processions a banner that excited considerable interest 
and challenge bore the inscription, “Hit the Kaiser with a 
Hoe Handle.” Now the Kaiser was very far away and 
at best extremely hard to hit. But this procession of high 
school volunteers for farm work had the truth on its 
banner. The Kaiser could be hit in a most telling way by 
the combined hoe handles of the high-school boys of 
America. The reason for this is that the world is so 
closely bound together that each part shares in the fortunes 
of the other. 

Now the only way in which one can put a great inspira¬ 
tion under and into his daily task is to gain a great vision 
of its value and relations. We always do small jobs for 

40 


THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM [III-c] 

a little world; but we are encouraged to do great work 
for a vast world. Reflect on that fact for a moment! The 
most disheartening thing about a little hard job is its little¬ 
ness. The most heartening thing about a great job is its 
bigness. Therefore anything that enlarges the character of 
the task and makes it world-wide in its significance puts 
new courage into the worker. For our own sakes we ought 
to define our work in the largest possible relations that it 
can bear to the whole world. The fact of service is the 
principle which lifts our tasks from the level of the com¬ 
monplace and the dreary and charges them with such uni¬ 
versal content as makes us take them up with religious 
fervor. 

Few men can be so masterful as Mr. Schwab and the 
other national leaders whose talents are being called out 
in marvelous fashion by the stress of the times. But 
every one of us can work in his spirit. He says that the 
genius of true living is service and that all who work for 
the common good are partners. He organizes his vast 
industries on the basis of this idea and gets the results 
which follow because he capitalizes the personal service 
and loyalty of his workmen. 

The kingdom of God is established and extended in 
exactly the same way. God makes us, the humblest of us, 
partners in the vast design. Thus no single task is small; 
it cannot be, for it is vital to the success of the great plan. 
No personal loyalty may be ignored without doing injustice 
to the whole kingdom. 

When one catches the full meaning of this splendid truth 
his whole life is lit up with a fresh glory. Dignity and 
worth are added to our dull days and little duties. We 
undertake the work of the new morning with a sense of 
its meaning that helps to lift the burden of toil and kindles 
the flame of enthusiasm, where the dreary doing of routine 
work had put out the fires. 


41 


CHAPTER IV 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN GLASS 

The supreme test of our ideals comes when we work 
them out in intimate personal relations. One may have 
never so exalted a theory of life; but what he actually does 
in his contact with others proves whether or not his ideal 
is vital. Jesus belonged to a certain class in his world. 
He was a Jew and the ideals of his time had practical 
meaning for him. But he leaped over the barriers of class 
and custom that had been erected by his countrymen and 
proved that his ideal of the kingdom, whose Messenger he 
was, had power to make the relations of suspicious and 
exclusive persons human and kind. Certain concrete ex¬ 
amples of these relations we shall study this week. 

Daily Readings 

Fourth Week, First Day: Among His Home People 

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been 
brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, 
into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood 
up to read. And there was delivered unto him 
the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened 
the book, and found the place where it was 
written, 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 

Because he anointed me to preach good tidings 
to the poor: 

He hath sent me to proclaim release to the cap¬ 
tives, 

And recovering of sight to the blind, 

To set at liberty them that are bruised, 

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.— 
Luke 4: 16-19. 


42 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN CLASS [IV-2] 

In the preceding chapter we have studied some of the 
things which Jesus said about his social mission. But to 
say such things and to put them into action are two quite 
different matters. We now watch Jesus as he actually 
came into contact with those who were not of his own 
class—Gentiles, foreigners, the worldly rich, and criminals. 

But first of all Jesus was brave enough to make his in¬ 
tended mission clear to the people of his own home village. 
It is a comparatively easy thing oftentimes to talk about 
the deep things of the spirit to a stranger. But when we 
would mention them to our own neighbor we wonder 
whether he is thinking, “O yes, you think you have a call 
to preach the Gospel abroad! You, who have failed in so 
many ways at home, you who have been such a poor neigh¬ 
bor, such a poor son and brother in your own family rela¬ 
tions.” 

Jesus, with his ideal manhood, had no such criticisms to 
face; but still he had that deepest of all prejudices to over¬ 
come: Was he not of their own village, the carpenter’s 
boy ? What right had he to think he had a greater mission 
than they? And yet Jesus was ready to preach at home 
as well as in other provinces. We, too, must be ready to 
begin in our own village, in our own neighborhood, to 
work out our highest ideals. The international mind can 
be realized in his own village by a college student on va¬ 
cation or beginning humbly a chosen life-work. 

Fourth Week, Second Day: When Jesus Met a Woman 
Who Worshiped in a Different Place 

The Samaritan woman therefore saith unto 
him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink 
of me, who am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews 
have no dealings with Samaritans.)—John 4:9. 

The hatred which existed between the Jews and the 
43 


[IV- 3 ] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Samaritans had its roots far back in the nation’s history, 
when the leaders of the Southern kingdom first began to 
believe and teach that there was but one great central 
place of worship, the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. 
The feeling of the Jews upon this subject was far more 
intense than any which could be held today by any body 
of Christians regarding their place of worship. To a 
devout Jew Jerusalem was in very truth the spiritual center 
of the world. 

In this lesson Jesus meets a woman who did not agree 
with the Jews about this all-important matter. Jesus 
turned at once from the material to the spiritual aspect of 
the question: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him 
must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4: 24). 

We are continually meeting people today who differ 
from us in their ideas concerning the place and forms of 
worship. And because of these differences all sorts of 
friction and even hatred sometimes arise, which make it 
difficult for men and women to work together. This makes 
a world-wide, or even a nation-wide fraternity of Chris¬ 
tians seem impossible. We can never overcome this great 
obstacle until we meet it as Jesus did. It does not matter 
whether we worship in a “meeting house,” a chapel, or a 
cathedral. But it does matter whether we seek God often 
in prayer and praise. It does not matter whether we kneel 
or stand upright, but it does matter whether or not our 
spirits bow before Him in sincere adoration. 

Let us approach all these trifling differences in the spirit 
of Jesus , ready to find brothers of the spirit even in those 
whose churches differ most widely from our own. 

Fourth Week, Third Day: The Prince of Peace with 
a Man of War 

And a certain centurion’s servant, who was 
dear unto him, was sick and at the point of death. 

44 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN CLASS [IV-4] 

And when he heard concerning Jesus, he sent 
unto him elders of the Jews, asking him that he 
would come and save his servant.—Luke 7:2, 3. 

When Jesus preached before the people of Nazareth 
and when he talked with the Samaritan woman, he was 
addressing those whose racial origin was the same as his 
own. But in this lesson he is asked to heal the servant of 
a foreigner, and that man a Roman soldier. The Jews 
had every reason to detest the soldiers of Rome. It was 
the Roman legions who had taken away their freedom, and 
rendered them a subject province; it was fear of those 
Roman legions alone which restrained them from immedi¬ 
ate rebellion. The very sight of glistening Roman armor 
was hateful to them. 

The elders of the Jews who came on this errand to Jesus 
realized this fact and proceeded to urge Jesus to do this 
act of healing because this particular centurion was differ¬ 
ent from other men of his class. Although a Roman 
soldier, it is true, they said, “He is worthy that thou 
shouldest do this for him; for he loveth our nation, and 
himself built us our synagogue” (Luke 7:4, 5). Although 
a Roman, the soldier was a lover of the Jewish faith. 

As Jesus had found friends in Samaria who worshiped 
the same God, though in a different temple, so now he 
found one among the hated Romans who also loved Je¬ 
hovah. How Jesus always seemed to find out the best that 
was in men! 

Fourth Week, Fourth Day: Jesus with the Vulgar 
Rich 

And behold, a man called by name Zacchseus; 
and he was a chief publican, and he was 
rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was; 
and could not for the crowd, because he was 
little of stature. And he ran on before, and 

45 


[IV-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he 
was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to 
the place, he looked up, and said unto him, Zac¬ 
chseus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I 
must abide at thy house. And he made haste, and 
came down, and received him joyfully. And when 
they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He is gone 
in to lodge with a man that is a sinner.—Luke 
19:2-7. 

How much easier it is to befriend the worthy poor than 
the ignoble rich! When we meet a person with more 
wealth than our own we tend to assume several things: 
First, that he regards us as somewhat his inferior; and, 
secondly, that he has had greater opportunities than we 
to make the most of himself. The first assumption tends 
to make us draw ourselves aloof with dignity, and the 
second tends to render us very censorious of any failure of 
his to reach our standards in taste and culture. There are 
few funny stories more popular than those of “Mrs. Sud¬ 
den-Rich,” or those concerning the ignorant millionaire’s 
blunders when he is traveling in Europe. 

Zacchseus was a little man in the estimation of the peo¬ 
ple as well as in his stature, and he was the more despised 
for this because of his wealth. But Jesus realized that a 
rich man, even in the midst of his material comforts and 
luxuries, may have a hunger of the spirit. Perhaps some¬ 
thing in Zacchaeus’s face as he leaned down from the tree- 
top, helped the Master to guess the yearning of his soul, 
so quick was Jesus always to understand. And so the 
Christ went home with Zacchseus as simply and cordially 
as he would have gone with one of his personal friends. 

The Church has for ages tried to teach us how we 
should respond to the need of the poor. Ought we not to 
consider also the spirit in which we should meet those who 
are above us in wealth or rank ?—not with cringing humil¬ 
ity, not with the difficult pride of the poor, not with a hope- 

46 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN CLASS [IV-5] 

less recognition of a class barrier, but with the frank and 
positive friendliness which we owe to all mankind alike. 

Fourth Week, Fifth Day : Jesus before a Roman Judge 

Pilate therefore entered again into the Praeto- 
rium, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art 
thou the King of the Jews ? Jesus answered, Say- 
est thou this of thyself, or did others tell it thee 
concerning me? Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? 
Thine own nation and the chief priests delivered 
thee unto me: what hast thou done? Jesus an¬ 
swered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my 
kingdom were of this world, then would my serv¬ 
ants fight, that I should not be delivered to the 
Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. 
—John 18:33-36. 

Jesus again is having to do with a Roman, this time 
his judge. If Jesus had ever shown fear or faltering 
subservience, surely it would have been now. Or he 
might have met his judge with a disdainful or bitter 
silence. But no, he was ready to answer any sincere 
question honestly, frankly, man to man. He was as ready 
to explain the great aim of his life to this man as he had 
been to the congregation at Nazareth, and he approached 
him on the same high ground of spiritual truth. “What is 
truth?” asked Pilate; and we know by what he said to 
the Jews as he went out to them that this Roman officer 
also was not wholly indifferent to what Jesus had said. 
Even in the Roman ruler’s soul the words of Jesus found 
their way to his highest nature. 

Sometimes we, too, are brought up to certain bars for 
judgment—our employers, a church council, or the public 
press—there are many different tribunals. And how cruel 
it sometimes seems to be misunderstood, when we have 
already done our .best to make what we thought was our 
mission clear and to act in accordance with our highest 

4 7 


[IV-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

motives. What is the use in our saying more or in our 
trying to defend ourselves? we ask bitterly. But as long 
as there is a sincere questioner we, too, must answer our 
judges. It was one of the kindest things that Jesus ever 
did—thus to try to lead his judge into the light of the 
truth. 

Fourth Week, Sixth Day: The Cyrenean Who Car¬ 
ried Jesus’ Burden 

And they compel one passing by, Simon of 
Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of 
Alexander and Rufus, to go with them, that he 
might bear his cross.—Mark 15:21. 

Jesus had been helping others, Jews and Gentiles alike, 
all his life. And now a man from Africa, from the city of 
Cyrene, helped him in his hour of great need. He was a 
country man, the story says, probably a man who was not 
used to the sights of a great city. We do not know how 
he had found his way so far from home as the great city 
of Jerusalem; but here he was, and doubtless eager to see 
all that was to be seen. And so he was interested in the 
coming execution of this much-talked-of Nazarene and in 
the excited crowd accompanying him through the city. 
All at once, much to his astonishment, the soldiers im¬ 
pressed him for service—he was to carry the cross of the 
fainting criminal. 

We wonder whether Simon was indignant at being 
compelled to carry a cross—a sign of shame. He did not 
know that the greatest hour of his life had come; that his 
name would be remembered forever. 

We have been thinking in our preceding chapters of how 
we may help those of other races; but we must not for¬ 
get at the same time how we ourselves are daily helped by 
those of other nationalities. Our very physical comfort 
depends upon the woman of the garment-maker’s shop, 

48 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN CLASS [IV-7] 

who toiled for the lowest of wages, stitching the clothes 
we wear. And although she may have made these gar¬ 
ments with rebellion in her heart, nevertheless, like Simon 
of Cyrene, she carried our burden. 

The Italians stood patiently beside the track, shovels in 
hand, this morning as our train rolled on and we sat at 
ease looking from the car window. We shall never speak 
to them or they to us, but they prepared the road for us. 
Whether we regard them as brothers or not, they toil for 
us and bow under the burdens which procure our comfort. 

Fourth Week, Seventh Day: Christ the Companion of 
a Thief 

And one of the malefactors that were hanged 
railed on him, saying, Art not thou the Christ? 
save thyself and us. But the other answered, and 
rebuking him said, Dost thou not even fear God, 
seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And 
we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward 
of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing 
amiss. And he said, Jesus, remember me when 
thou comest in thy kingdom. And he said unto 
him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be 
with me in Paradise.—Luke 23: 39-43. 

After all, the most difficult class boundary for a pure 
and noble soul to cross is that which separates him from 
the vile evil-doers of the criminal world. Attempting to 
do this he feels an instinctive shrinking, a repulsion of 
the spirit more controlling than any mere physical repul¬ 
sion from disease or poverty or filth. It is the intuitive 
revolt of the soul. 

In the midst of an agony which we cannot comprehend 
Jesus heard the cry of a debased soul. The very sight and 
presence of Jesus had revealed the thief to himself; he 
recognized that he was receiving the punishment which he 
deserved. Even death upon the cross was not too great a 

49 


[IV-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

penalty for sin like his. His recognition of his sin was the 
opportunity of Jesus. There was no time for explanations. 
Jesus had strength for but one sentence in reply; but what 
more glorious, more wonderful thing could he say to any 
one of us: “To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise”! 

The thief was the last man to whom Jesus spoke. With 
that meeting, that recognition of the soul of a criminal, 
his work was ended. Into the glorious beyond he carried 
his mission, and amid the songs of triumph of the angel 
chorus we may be sure Jesus did not forget his promise 
to the thief. That day they were together in Paradise in 
a glory of joy which is beyond our imagination. 

And so the mission of Jesus to men of other classes 
ended in a mystery of glory. And the experiences of 
many heroic souls who have bridged class barriers with 
love have revealed a splendor which can be put into no 
printed words. In company with the outcast and the de¬ 
graded and the sinful, they too have found a paradise 
of joy! And so shall we, if we but venture. 

Comment for the Week 

Jesus was born in a land where it was easy to become 
a cosmopolitan. It is difficult for a farmer boy in some 
inaccessible district to learn a foreign language, or to form 
any adequate conception of the life in lands, none of whose 
inhabitants he has ever seen. But a boy living where 
Jesus did could not fail to meet many people from those 
countries which surrounded the eastern Mediterranean; 
and, as Palestine was under the Roman domination, its 
inhabitants were brought into intimate contact with that 
greatest civilization of the ages. 

Palestine was the great highway for traders passing 
from the Euphrates valley to Egypt, or for those bringing 
goods from Egypt in return. All trade routes from the 
far East to Rome and Greece led most naturally through 

50 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN CLASS [IV-c] 

this land. The costumes of the deserts, of the Nile, of 
the Tigris-Euphrates, of Athens, Tyre and Sidon, and 
the great capital city itself, were all familiar to Jesus, and 
in the course of his busy life he doubtless met representa¬ 
tives of all these places. 

It was an age of deep prejudices and bitter race animos¬ 
ities. But Jesus met each man as though these hatreds 
did not exist, face to face and soul to soul. Each man 
was, it is true, a member of some nation, but that relation¬ 
ship was insignificant compared with his relationship to 
God. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s 
and unto God the things which are God’s” (Luke 20:25). 
And how much the allegiance due to God surpasses that 
due unto Caesar! 

Thus, with a total ignoring of racial separation, Jesus 
met men from other lands and talked with them about 
those spiritual truths which are greater than all human dif¬ 
ferences. When he was but a baby in the Bethlehem 
stable, his first gifts were presented by the sages of foreign 
lands. Thus in the most Jewish of the gospels we find this 
story which is symbolical of his future lordship over all 
people. 

Before the coming of Jesus the people of Jehovah had 
been the descendants of Abraham, the circumcised children 
of the law, those who were permitted to enter the temple 
court. The very existence of the Court of the Gentiles 
and the Court of the Women showed that these others 
were regarded as outside the special favor of God. But 
when Nicodemus came to visit Jesus by night Jesus said 
that it was those who were born again who were to see the 
kingdom of God. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler of 
the Jews, but the words of Jesus were incomprehensible 
to him. Such a conception of the people of God had never 
occurred to him and he marveled at it. 

Such a test of salvation concerned Jew and Gentile alike. 
51 


[IV-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

However mystical, it was possible by the grace of God 
for all. The last words of Jesus before his ascension were, 
“Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth” (Acts 1:8). Such a world-wide vision would have 
been unthinkable before Jesus lived. 

Within the short lifetime of Jesus and his three brief 
years of ministry there was time only for the very begin¬ 
ning of this preaching of “the gospel to every creature.” 
And yet during this short time Jesus crossed over the 
Jordan into the country of the Gerasenes, where he healed 
the man with the unclean spirit; he traveled into the 
borders of Tyre and Sidon and cured the daughter of the 
Syrophoenician woman; and, instead of passing around, 
he journeyed through the despised country of Samaria 
on his way from Jerusalem, meeting the woman by the 
well and winning her heart. Busy and crowded as those 
three years of ministry were, they yet contained the very 
beginnings, the germ of the great missionary enterprise. 
Even from these brief records we can guess what a mis¬ 
sionary Jesus would have made. 

How he would have approved of our sending doctors to 
lands of ignorance and pain! The Syrophoenician wo¬ 
man’s heart was won because he healed her daughter. 
The Gerasene with the unclean spirit was first of all cured 
of his terrible malady. After that Jesus commanded him 
to go to his home and tell how great things the Lord had 
done for him, “and he went his way, and began to publish 
in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: 
and all men marvelled” (Mark 5:20). The Gerasene had 
besought Jesus that he might go with him, but instead he 
was thrust away to learn self-reliance by paying his debt 
of gratitude in teaching others the glad news concerning 
Jesus. Is not that the very principle which our mission¬ 
aries are striving today to put into effect in their mission 

52 


OUTSIDE HIS OWN CLASS [IV-c] 

fields? Every effort is made to render new converts inde¬ 
pendent of their teachers and to lead them to the point 
where they can themselves assume responsibility. 

Jesus was an ideal missionary in the way in which he 
approached the Samaritan woman through the daily inter¬ 
ests of her life, and then tactfully led the conversation to- 
the deeper things of the spirit. The well, the thirst of 
a weary traveler, her own troubled past, the reiterated 
disputes concerning the proper place to worship—these 
things she knew, and through these crude themes of con¬ 
versation she was led to know God. 

We can never wholly appreciate the wonder of Jesus’ 
loving, yearning approach to those people of foreign race, 
because we can never put ourselves back into the attitude 
of the people of his time. 

But we can find reflected in the narrative the wonder 
of those whom he thus approached. “How is it that thou, 
being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a Samaritan 
woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans)” 
adds the commentator (John 4:9). “Why do ye eat and 
drink with the publicans and sinners?” asked the scribes 
and Pharisees when Jesus went to the feast at Levi’s 
house. And Jesus replied that he had not come “to call the 
righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:30-32). 

Jesus’ mission was to whomsoever needed him, the sick, 
not the well, sinners and not the righteous. We are re¬ 
minded of the words of Phillips Brooks when he was re¬ 
proached because he did not guard his hours for study 
more carefully, but was always ready to stop his work for 
any caller who came. “The man who wants to see me,” 
he said, “is the man I want to see.” 

And so the man who wanted to see Jesus was the man 
whom Jesus sought, whether he were Jew or Gentile, 
rich or poor, bond or free. Truly Jesus was the greatest 
of cosmopolitans. 


53 


CHAPTER V 


THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES 

To the Jew the world was divided into Jews and Gen¬ 
tiles. Therefore when the first Jews became Christians it 
was natural that they should carry their exclusive ideas 
into their new faith and regard ij: as intended for Jews 
alone. It was Paul, a Jew of the Jews, who overleaped this 
barrier, rescued the international faith from remaining a 
mere Jewish sect, and won for himself the title “Apostle 
to the Gentiles.” 

The story of his life is the record of this broad mission, 
and his letters are filled with the exposition of various 
phases of this truth, that Jesus Christ came for the salva¬ 
tion of the whole world. 

Paul was the first Christian foreign missionary, carry¬ 
ing on his work throughout the Roman world. He set the 
example for all the noble men and women who have 
dreamed and toiled for the bringing of the world into alle¬ 
giance to Christ. 

Daily Readings 

Fifth Week, First Day: A Light of the Gentiles 

And the next sabbath almost the whole city was 
gathered together to hear the word of God. But 
when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled 
with jealousy, and contradicted the things which 
were spoken by Paul, and blasphemed. And Paul 
and Barnabas spake out boldly, and said, It was 

54 


THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES [V-i] 

necessary that the word of God should first be 
spoken to you. Seeing ye thrust it from you, and 
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we 
turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord com¬ 
manded us, saying, 

I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles, 

That thou shouldest be for salvation unto the 
uttermost part of the earth. 

And as the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, 
and glorified the word of God: and as many as 
were ordained to eternal life believed.—Acts 
13:44-48. 


In nearly every city where Paul worked he began in the 
synagogue, if one were to be found, or he immediately 
gathered about him the devout people of his own race. 
He made his first appeal for his Master to the Jews. But 
time and again his efforts among them met with no re¬ 
sponse and even with open opposition, while, on the other 
hand, the Gentiles heard him gladly. His mission re¬ 
sembled that of a torch-bearer. He was like a light to the 
darkened races of the earth, darkened, in spite of all the 
gifts of Roman civilization, by their sins and their heathen 
religion. 

What a sweep in Paul’s ambition! In those days of 
dangerous and difficult travel, probably himself a small 
and not over-strong man, he dreamed of carrying his mes¬ 
sage "to the ends of the earth.” And he pushed on re¬ 
lentlessly toward the goal of his international mission. In 
his letter to the Romans he mentions the time, "whensoever 
I go unto Spain” (Rom. 15:24)—and Spain was then at 
the limit of the known world. 

We do not know whether he ever visited that distant 
land fronting the western ocean; but we do know that he 
labored for many years "in journeyings often, in perils of 
rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my country- 

55 


[V-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

men, in perils from the Gentiles” (II Cor. n : 26), a brave 
apostle to the Gentiles, because his soul was aflame with 
love of the ends of the earth. Jesus, Paul’s Master, had 
called himself the Light of the world. Paul now carried 
that light to the farthest attainable limit. 


Fifth Week, Second Day: The Hearts of Men Are 
a Book of the Law 

For there is no respect of persons with God. 

For as many as have sinned without the law shall 
also perish without the law: and as many as 
have sinned under the law shall be judged by the 
law; for not the hearers of the law are just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified 
(for when Gentiles that have not the law do by 
nature the things of the law, these, not having the 
law, are the law unto themselves; in that they 
show the work of the law written in their hearts, 
their conscience bearing witness therewith, and 
their thoughts one with another accusing or else 
excusing them) ; in the day when God shall judge 
the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by 
Jesus Christ.—Rom. 2: 11-16. 

It is the parenthesis in this long sentence which we are 
to consider especially. To the Jews the Book of the Law 
was most sacred. They studied it, defended it, and prac¬ 
tically worshiped it. To say that the hearts of Gentiles 
might in any sense whatever be a Book of the Law was 
radical teaching, likely to make one the object of mis¬ 
understanding if not of persecution. 

The ability to distinguish between right and wrong is 
perhaps the most wonderful of all God’s gifts to men. A 
study of the moral standards of different nations confirms 
the truth in this unusual and challenging statement of 
Paul. There are many minor differences to be seen at 
once. Among the Arabs and the frontiersmen the duty of 

56 


THE APOSTLES TO THE GENTILES [V-3] 

hospitality assumes foremost place; among the Chinese 
reverence for one’s ancestors and parents becomes most 
prominent; in our Western world, especially under the 
searching conditions of war and social passion, new duties 
are coming into a place of commanding importance. And 
just as certain virtues are emphasized by certain religious 
teachers, so specific sins are made prominent. 

But the great outstanding virtues and moral laws are 
recognized in every heart. Murder, theft, adultery, false¬ 
hood, and anger are universally condemned; kindness, 
love, unselfishness, generosity, and purity are held in 
honor. There may be apparent exceptions among those 
whose moral sense has been perverted by false training, 
evil associations, and personal sins; but the natural heart, 
as God made it, contains a Book of the Law. So at the 
very basis of all human unity lies mankind’s moral con¬ 
sciousness. It is the warrant for our expectation that 
finally the race will be gloriously one in the moral life 
inspired and made possible by Christ. 

Fifth Week, Third Day: All Men Are the Offspring 
of God 

The God that made the world and all things 
therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither 
is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed 
anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and 
breath, and all things; and he made of one every 
nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, 
having determined their appointed seasons, and 
the bounds of their habitation; that they should 
seek God, if haply they might feel after him and 
find him, though he is not far from each one of 
us: for in him we live, and move, and have our 
being; as certain even of your own poets have 
said, 

For we are also his offspring.—Acts 17:24-28. 

57 


[V-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Just as all men possess the fundamental knowledge of 
what God would have them do and an elementary and uni¬ 
versal sense of sin, so all men may seek God and find him 
in some way without the aid of a priest. Paul says that 
God is “not far from each one of us”; then he rises to a 
height of confidence as he exclaims, “We have our. very 
existence in him.” And he confirms it by the authority of 
their own poets. On the basis of this fact he proceeds to 
tell them the good news concerning the God and Father 
of Jesus Christ. 

There are many today who have not turned to the God 
who is worshiped in the churches because they have not 
realized that he is the very Person for whom they always 
have yearned when they have been truest to themselves, 
but whom they never have found. The restless boy cannot 
understand that in Jesus there is a Hero, braver and more 
enduring than the cowboy adventurer of whom he loves 
to read, a Comrade more ready to share his joys than any 
older boy whom he follows with the devotion of a slave. 
But if we can lay hold of his admiration and imitation of 
his school heroes and through them show him the mean¬ 
ing of Christ, he will come to love and serve the 
Father. 

So perhaps Damaris of Athens had been longing for a 
friend to whom she could confide her perplexities, some 
woman who was wiser and stronger, more winsome and 
more beautiful than herself, whom she could love and who 
would lead her on to higher things. Then one day she 
heard on Mars Hill a man named Paul and she learned 
that nearer to her than any human friend whom she ever 
could possibly find was God. The Father spoke to his 
child through the lips of this messenger of universal good 
news. And so when “certain clave unto him and believed,” 
among them was “Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman 
named Damaris, and others with them” (Acts 17: 34). 

58 


THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES [V-4] 

Fifth Week, Fourth Day: One Salvation for Jew and 
Gentile 

I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, 
both to the wise and to the foolish. So, as much 
as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you 
also that are in Rome. 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is 
the power of God unto salvation to every one that 
believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 

—Rom. 1: 14-16. 

For since by man came death, by man came 
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam 
all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.— 

I Cor. 15: 21, 22. 

Saint Paul was an excellent logician. Whether because 
of his training among the Jewish rabbis, or because of his 
natural gifts, he always saw a matter in all its relation¬ 
ships, he always thought a subject through to its logical 
end. 

If, as the Jews thought, death and sin had come into 
the world as the result of the guilt of one man, one must 
inevitably conclude that if Christ in turn had overcome 
sin and death for anyone, he had overcome them for all, 
or else his salvation was imperfect. 

Many bitter theological discussions have gathered 
around these verses. If we are fair and reasonable, how¬ 
ever, they may suggest to us the argument that if sin is 
common to all, so also is the possibility of right action. 
The very fact that a soul is capable of sin, is responsible 
for it, proves also that that same soul is capable of regen¬ 
eration, that it may be uplifted to nobility and righteous¬ 
ness. Such a conviction must have great influence upon 
our attitude toward the criminals of our own land and 
also toward the lower races of other lands. 

If regeneration is ever possible for every man, however 

59 


[V-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

debased, then our prisons must not be simply places of 
punishment or buildings where those of evil intent shall 
be kept safe that they may not injure others. Above all 
they must be dwellings where every possible incentive to 
an upright and honest life is provided, where it is easy to 
choose the good and difficult to choose the wrong. 

Such a conception of the possibility of salvation for all 
makes slavery of all kinds forever impossible. This in¬ 
cludes economic as well as political bondage. Justice 
demands freedom of action for all, that all alike may be 
free to choose the right. No final master but God is tol¬ 
erable. 

Fifth Week, Fifth Day: One Body in Christ 

For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of the body, being many, are 
one body; so also is Christ. For in one Spirit 
were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews 
or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all 
made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not 
one member, but many.—I Cor. 12: 12-14. 

Paul has been speaking in the preceding verses of the 
various gifts which God has given to men: to one, knowl¬ 
edge; to another, faith; to another, healing; and to an¬ 
other, prophecy. But all, he says, are to be guided by 
the same Spirit. 

Over and over in these verses containing this wonder¬ 
ful figure of “the body” Paul speaks of the Spirit. We may 
have different gifts. Just as there were Jews and Gentiles 
in Paul’s time, so now there are Italians and Japanese, 
Turks and Americans. Each may have his own special 
gift, just as our own nation has seemed to be especially 
endowed with inventive insight; but all should be gov¬ 
erned by the same Spirit. 

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will 
guide you into all the truth,” said Jesus on that last 


THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES [V-6] 

evening with his disciples (John 16:13). Just as the 
members of the body, all separate, all differing from one 
another in gifts, are yet guided and ruled by one brain, by 
one master-will, so are various peoples to be guided by 
the Spirit of Christ. It is a wonderful figure, worthy of 
the man who gave his life to leading so many different 
nations to Jesus. 

It is supremely important that these differences should 
be seen and respected by all who are working for the high¬ 
est welfare of the race. Every nation has something to 
contribute to the common good, as every member of a 
family circle has his own contribution to make to the 
family life. The father who tried to make his children all 
alike would work them the highest degree of injury. The 
wise father seeks to bring out the individual gift and 
ability of each member of the household in order that the 
family as a whole may be happier and stronger. So in the 
commonwealth of nations we must bring out the individual 
capacity of each. 

The most successful missionaries are those who have 
gone to backward nations with respect in their hearts for 
the essential humanity and worth of those whom they 
seek to help. That is the only way in which one may hope 
to win the hearts of the non-Christian world to Christ. 
Unless humanity is worthy of respect it is not worthy of 
service. 

Fifth Week, Sixth Day: Mankind the Habitation of 
God 

So then ye are no more strangers and sojourn¬ 
ers, but ye are fellow-citizens with the saints, and 
of the household of God, being built upon the 
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ 
Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in 
whom each several building, fitly framed together, 
groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom 
61 


[V-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ye also are builded together for a habitation of 
God in the spirit.—Eph. 2:19-22. 

In this passage we have another remarkable figure illus¬ 
trating the unity of mankind in God. Perhaps Paul had 
in mind some great palace of the Emperor or other high 
official, with its numerous apartments, its many halls and 
corridors, its rooms suitable for so many different pur¬ 
poses. Not all the rooms were fitted for the same use. 
Indeed, perhaps no two in all the immense establishment 
were shaped and furnished exactly alike; but still all be¬ 
longed to the great whole, all were designed and used by 
the owner or by his servants and friends. 

In the same way Paul conceives of God as taking pleas¬ 
ure in the many different congregations of Christians 
among whom he has journeyed, in the church at Ephesus, 
in the church at Corinth, and in the church at Jerusalem. 

In the first verse of this passage he speaks of them 
all as fellow-citizens. Members of different earthly king¬ 
doms, they were all alike members of the “kingdom of 
God,” that kingdom mentioned over and over again so fre¬ 
quently in the New Testament. And again he speaks of 
them all as members of the household or the family of 
God, that closest of all human relationships. 

Thus in one figure after another, in the thought of his 
friends of various nationalities as parts of one building, 
as members of one family, as citizens of one kingdom, 
Paul strove to make clear to the Christians at Ephesus 
the great fact of their unity in the Spirit of Christ. 

A recent writer has said: “The two broad principles that 
are contending today for supremacy in international rela¬ 
tions are self-advantage and service. The ultimate ex¬ 
pression of the one is militarism; of the other, foreign mis¬ 
sions.” 1 

1 J. Lovell Murray, “ The Call of a World Task,” p. 58. 

62 



THE APOSTLES TO THE GENTILES [V-7] 

We know too well what militarism has done for the 
world. Is it not time to trust the vision and the program 
of that superb internationalist, Paul, and try to realize in 
a universal mission of good will the genius of the Christian 
faith? 

Fifth Week, Seventh Day: Paul’s Son , Onesimus 

Wherefore, though I have all boldness in Christ 
to enjoin thee that which is befitting, yet for love’s 
sake I rather beseech, being such a one as Paul 
the aged, and now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus: 

I beseech thee for my child, whom I have begotten 
in my bonds, Onesimus, who once was unprofit¬ 
able to thee, but now is profitable to thee and to 
me: whom I have sent back to thee in his own 
person, that is, my very heart. . . . For per¬ 

haps he was therefore parted from thee for a sea¬ 
son, that thou shouldest have him for ever; no 
longer as a servant, but more than a servant, a 
brother beloved, specially to me, but how much 
rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 

—Philemon 8-12, 15, 16. 

It is difficult for us today to appreciate fully just what 
it meant to be a servant when Paul wrote to Philemon. 
Great as were the differences which separated race from 
race, those existing between the status of master and 
servant were still more radical. This servant was a slave 
and had committed one of the greatest of crimes in his 
master’s eyes—he had run away to Rome. There he had 
met Paul and become a Christian; and now Paul is send¬ 
ing him back to his master Philemon, who was an old 
friend. 

Philemon also was a Christian, probably one of Paul’s 
converts. He was a kind man, ready to give and to do any¬ 
thing in his power for the poor brethren, as we learn from 
verse 5. But Paul was asking something more from 

63 


[V-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

him than a mere gift for the church. He was asking him 
to welcome back his old runaway slave as a brother. 

The name Onesimus means “profitable.” There is a 
broad hint at theft as well as flight in the case, for Paul 
speaks of him as hitherto unprofitable. 

It is so much easier to minister to the saints and to 
“communicate our faith,” perhaps before a fine large audi¬ 
ence, than to treat a poor runaway slave as a brother. 
The blundering woman in the kitchen who spoils the 
dinner for our guests is so much less romantic and inter¬ 
esting than the returned missionary whom we so gladly 
entertain. The office boy, who shirks his work and 
watches the procession when he should have been doing 
our errand, makes very little appeal to us in comparison 
with the great speaker, the saint of God whom we heard on 
Sunday. 

We are happy, after reading of Paul’s ambition to preach 
the Gospel in Spain, to know that he had time to love and 
care for a poor runaway slave. The man whose eyes were 
open to the great vision was not blind to the needs of 
the humble servant, close at hand. 


Comment for the Week 

The change from Saul, the bigoted Jew, to Paul, the 
Apostle to the Gentiles, is one of the wonderful facts of 
church history. As he himself says, “after the straitest 
sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.” His religious 
training was concentrated upon the facts of Jewish 
history, upon the interpretation of the law and the fine¬ 
spun legal arguments of the scribes and Pharisees. He 
had been absolutely unsympathetic and unyielding toward 
those who did not hold the same faith as his own. Unre¬ 
lentingly he had pursued the new sect of Christians and, 

64 


THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES [V-c] 

seizing men and women, had delivered them to prison and 
persecution. 

After his conversion, he lived a life which brought him 
into contact with many races and with all classes of men. 
He was acquainted with the corrupt and pleasure-loving 
Greeks of Corinth, with the intellectual, argument-loving 
Athenians, with the practical, war-like Romans, with the 
various colonists of Asia Minor, as well as with the 
strictest of the Jews. He had scholars and soldiers, 
wealthy masters and runaway slaves for his friends. 

If there was ever a man who had opportunity to observe 
the great differences between races, if there was ever a 
man trained to regard these differences as of great im¬ 
portance, surely that man was Paul. And yet, in spite of 
that, we turn to him for the great teaching of the early 
Church as to the unity of all men in Christ. Not only did 
he teach the oneness of mankind; but he lived his wonder¬ 
ful life in strict accordance with that belief, and is a re¬ 
markable example of what such a faith may enable a man 
to accomplish. 

How unique this attitude was we can appreciate only 
by studying the work of other early teachers and their 
demands upon converts from the Gentile world. The 
Christians at Jerusalem were astonished when they learned 
that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been given to Cornelius 
and his kinsman after Peter’s teaching. Indeed, they 
judged Peter to have been guilty of a grave fault, because 
he had eaten with these Gentile Christians. 

After the establishment of the church at Antioch cer¬ 
tain Jews came down from Judea, teaching that there could 
be no salvation for any except by the strict observance of 
the Jewish law of circumcision, and a delegation was 
finally sent to the elders at Jerusalem to request a decision 
upon this important matter. Paul and Barnabas were 
among those chosen for this delicate mission, and we 

65 



[V-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

cannot doubt that it was largely through the influence and 
persuasion of Paul that the demands made upon these 
Gentile Christians were so lenient—merely that they 
should abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, 
and from things strangled, and from fornication, “from 
which if ye keep yourselves, it shall be well with you” 
(Acts 15:29). 

It was Paul who set men free from the shackles of the 
law, who in his unerring logic discerned what was essen¬ 
tial and what was non-essential, who perceived clearly 
those things in which it is necessary that Christians should 
resemble Christ and one another, and in what things we 
may differ without doing wrong in the sight of God or man 
—one of the most important of all tasks for his time. 

These fundamental decisions between right and wrong 
were based, as we may infer from the passage quoted on 
the second day of this week, upon the God-given law in the 
human heart. This unwritten law has been given to all 
men. In equal measure God is accessible to all men, and 
all feel the impulse to worship him, even as did the Athe¬ 
nians whom Paul addressed on Mars Hill. The beauty 
and meaning of this relationship to God can be expressed 
only by symbols, for words are inadequate to make clear 
the reality. But in passionate attempts at expression Paul 
likens us to the body of the Church, to a building in which 
Jesus Christ is the chief corner-stone, to a kingdom of 
which all are citizens under the divine rule of God, and to 
a family of which we may all be sons and daughters. 

It is hardly possible to overestimate the work of Paul. 
He took the first step in that long line of missionary en¬ 
deavor which finally resulted in the bringing of the Gospel 
into England and so down to us. In one sense we might 
almost say, as did some of the Corinthians, that we are 
“of Paul.” The home of our ancestors in Europe was to 
the converts and spiritual descendants of Paul the “far mis- 

66 


THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES [V-c] 

sion field.” He is for us the important link uniting us in 
our spiritual ancestry to the church of the apostles at 
Jerusalem. With gratitude to the great Apostle of the 
Gentiles, we should be ready in our turn to carry on his 
ideals for the promotion of the brotherhood of all man¬ 
kind. 

The practical result of the ideal and the ministry of 
Paul is seen in the inspiration which his words and deeds 
have given to the larger conceptions of Christian service 
that have guided the great leaders of the Church. These 
men and women have seen that nothing less than an inter¬ 
national field was open to the Gospel of Christ. As Charles 
Cuthbert Hall said concerning the Church as seen in the 
New Testament, it “was to advance into the world as the 
herald of the Kingdom of God. St. Paul was its provi¬ 
dential leader; the most cosmopolitan of church-men.” 2 

a “ Universal Elements of the Christian Religion,” p. 72. 


67 



CHAPTER VI 


AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE 

We now pass, by what may seem to be an abrupt change, 
from the study of the original definition of the universal 
and international elements in the Christian religion to 
certain interpretations of these factors. With one excep¬ 
tion these will be modern expressions of international 
Christianity. They will cover a wide field and have been 
chosen in order that it may appear how varied and vast is 
the interpretation of this truth. 

In order that we may come at once to the study we have 
selected the work of John Henry Barrows and Charles 
Cuthbert Hall, two scholars and preachers, who were sent 
to India to interpret Christianity to that country of vener¬ 
able and mighty religious thought. These two men at¬ 
tempted to sit at the Interpreter’s House and explain in 
patient and persuasive fashion the inner meaning, the 
abiding essence of the Christian religion. Therefore we 
begin our survey of modern expressions of international 
Christianity with the lectures of Dr. Barrows and Dr. 
Hall in India during the period from 1896 to 1907. 

Daily Readings 

Sixth Week, First Day: lhe World the Subject of 
Redemption 

“We study Christianity intelligently, only when 
we see it claiming the whole of humanity, and the 
whole of man as the field of its redeeming activ- 
68 


AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-i] 

ities, planning the redemption of the individual 
and the uplifting of society.” 

—Barrows, “Christianity the World Religion,” 

p. 96. 

In order to catch the point of view contained in this 
significant statement, think for a moment of some of the 
conventional words that have been used to describe the 
nature and mission of the Christian religion. 

It was designed to “save souls”; and the soul was some¬ 
thing quite distinct from the body, generally thought of as 
finding its great enemy in the body. Now and then a saint 
like Francis of Assisi could speak of “brother body”; but 
even he thought that the flesh was at war with the spirit. 

It was meant to include “the saved,” a sort of rescued 
and favored caste, sure of heaven and spurning earth as 
a sphere of discipline destined to final destruction. This 
idea was sometimes repudiated; but in general it was the 
current way in which to think of the elect or the saved. 

But Canon Fremantle delivered a course of lectures 
in 1885 in which he maintained that nothing less than the 
whole world was the subject of redemption. It was not 
possible to save souls apart from bodies, for all that we 
can experience of souls is in close organic connection with 
bodies. And a group of humanity gathered into a saved 
class does not at all represent the Christian idea of salva¬ 
tion. The world and the whole man must be saved, or at 
least it is necessary to include these in the total object of 
the Christian redemption. 

And so began what Dr. Barrows calls the intelligent 
study of Christianity. The whole system has taken on 
meaning and beauty as a result. It is worth our best 
thought and it has the right to claim our complete devo¬ 
tion. Nothing less will ever win the personal loyalty of 
the modern man. As Charles Cuthbert Hall says: “The 
Christian students of the world have placed themselves 

69 


[VI-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

upon a basis that discards racial and sectarian distinc¬ 
tions and have undertaken to propagate the undifferenti¬ 
ated essence of the Christian religion.” 1 The religion of 
Christ is for the whole of life. 

Sixth Week, Second Day: Christian Intellectual Hos¬ 
pitality 

“I believe that Christianity can be shown to in¬ 
clude what is best in the ethnic faiths, to have ele¬ 
ments which make it supreme, an authoritative¬ 
ness which makes it distinctive, and that, when de¬ 
veloped in accordance with its divine ideas and 
modified to meet the mental and other necessities 
of different nations, it will yet dominate with its 
beneficent rule the entire race.” 

—Barrows, “Christianity the World Religion,” 

P- 32. 

It would have seemed a dangerous and impertinent act 
to the men of a former generation to make any compari¬ 
sons between Christianity and other religions. To hint 
that there was anything good in the other faiths, to venture 
to compare peerless Christianity with anything else, was 
unj ustifiable. 

Then came the comparative method in the processes of 
science. Religion could not claim to be the great excep¬ 
tion without distinct loss. Who would be brave enough 
to submit even it to the test of comparison? The pioneers 
in the study of comparative religion undertook the task. 
And the result has been to the complete advantage of 
Christianity. 

This advantage has been two-fold: Christianity has 
become more humble and sincere. Her teachers and de¬ 
fenders have lost some of the old-time arrogance, for they 
have found that they still have something to learn. The 

1 “ Universal Elements of the Christian Religion,” p. 16. 

70 



AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-3] 

sacred books and the venerable doctrines of Christianity 
share in the literature and the life of ancient races. It 
loses some of its unique treasures. It is less likely to boast. 

But the distinct character and mission of Christianity 
stand out all the more clearly when it is compared with 
the other religions of the world. It is seen to be fit for the 
universal mission claimed for it, not because the claim has 
been loudly shouted forth, but because it has been justified 
by the evidence. 

Dr. Hall summed it up in these words: “The Christian¬ 
ization of the world suggests, then, the conservation of 
all that is true in the non-Christian faiths, and its purga¬ 
tion, reconstruction and consummation in the fullness that 
is in Christ Jesus.” 2 

Sixth Week, Third Day: Human Unity , Deep and 
Reasonable 

“It has been said that ‘the idea of the unity of 
man has, within the last century, become not 
merely a dogma, but an almost instinctive pre¬ 
supposition of all civilized men.’ This unity is not 
superficial and apparent, it is profound and 
esoteric; it exists not in the speech or custom, but 
in the spirit, of humanity, beneath and within all 
political, social, cultural, religious, racial distinc¬ 
tions. To affirm it is not to deny the reality or the 
reasonableness of such distinctions. To believe it 
is not to give one’s self over to a mad democracy 
that would obliterate natural boundaries.” 

—Hall, “Christian Belief Interpreted by Chris¬ 
tian Experience,” p. 8. 

The meaning of the unity of mankind will be determined 
in our thinking by the depth to which it reaches. If we 
think of the mere externals of life, the idea will have 
little significance or power. Apparent signs of a com- 

2 “ Universal Elements of the Christian Religion,” p. Si* 

71 





[VI-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

mon nature and aim among all men may easily deceive us. j 
But when we rest the idea in the spirit of humanity , as Dr. 
Hall does, we gain a sense of security and joy in the truth 
that sustains us during any experience that for the time 
being obscures the truth. We are alike in the great hopes 
and yearnings of our spirits. We face the deepest expe¬ 
riences of life in the same way. Mothers sing to their 
babies and strong men face the tests of life in the same 
spirit. Here lies the unity of the race. 

Another point which must be kept clear in our thought 
of the unity of humanity is the reality and persistence of 
those fundamental differences, without which there could 
be no deep and permanent unity. Essential unity does not 
obliterate racial or national differences and barriers. 
They remain and serve a good purpose. The members of 
a family are all one in the unity of the home circle; but 
each preserves his individuality and makes his greatest 
contribution to the whole family life because he does 
preserve his individual characteristics. This will always 
be true in the unity of nations. 

This has been put clearly in a recent book: 

“The international mind not only emancipates the na¬ 
tional mind, it glorifies and enriches it. It raises patriot¬ 
ism above all noise and buncombe and brag and gives it 
a lofty moral quality. . . . The new Christian interna- I 
tionalism will embrace the redeemed nationalism of many 
peoples.” * 

Sixth Week, Fourth Day: “And One Far-Off , Di¬ 
vine Event” 

“The family of man is one family; the nature 
of man is one nature; the identity of the human 
spirit persists always, everywhere, beneath all dis- 

8 J. Lovell Murray, “ The Call of a World Task,” p. 35. 

72 







AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-4] 

tinctions. So, as from the high towers of thought 
men have viewed the long track of history, they 
have come to realise that the condition of the hu¬ 
man race is not fixed; it advances, moving, as it 
were, toward a goal. In this evolutionary pro¬ 
gress of the race, as in the struggle of personal 
existence, nations, like individuals, take part, con¬ 
tributing to, or fighting against the onward move¬ 
ment.” 

—Hall, “Christian Belief Interpreted by Chris¬ 
tian Experience,” p. 9. 

As we think through the meaning of history, we arrive 
sooner or later at a fundamental philosophy of its move¬ 
ment and meaning. It is not drifting by chance to an un¬ 
determined goal. There is direction and wisdom and 
guidance in it. The whole vast process is so great that it 
bewilders us; but we discern, with constantly greater 
clearness, a meaning to the confusion and a clue to the 
mystery. The race is moving to that “far-off, divine 
event” which the prophets and poets have seen and sung. 

But it never will be reached unless nations work to¬ 
gether to bring it to realization. Of course it is difficult 
to define national responsibility for international well¬ 
being. An individual is impertinent when he attempts to 
assign responsibilities and fix tasks in affairs so vast. 

There are principles to guide national action that are 
clear enough, however. They are not different from those 
which ought to determine individual conduct. Donald 
Hankey put the principle in these words: 

“We have got to follow what we think right quite reck¬ 
lessly, and leave the issue to God; and in judging between 
right and wrong we are given only two rules for our 
guidance. Everything which shows love for God and love 
for man is right, and everything which shows personal 
ambition and anxiety is wrong.” 4 


4 “ A Student in Arms,” series 2, p. 170. 

73 



[VI-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

There could be no fairer and better standard than this 
for nations. That which shows selfish ambition is wrong 
and that which displays love is right. If this principle 
might be worked out in the service that nations render to 
the commonwealth of mankind, we should soon come to a 
better order of life for all the world. 

Sixth Week, Fifth Day: Union in Heart and Idea 

“The existence of an absolute religion becomes 
conceivable for those who believe, as I most pro¬ 
foundly believe, the essential unity of the human 
race, and the possibility of a true union of hearts 
and a mutual comprehension of feelings and ideas, 
between those who by racial ancestry, by lan¬ 
guage, by colour, by social institutions, by reli¬ 
gious traditions, and by all other outward signs of 
difference are separated as widely as the East 
from the West.” 

—Hall, “Christian Belief Interpreted by Chris¬ 
tian Experience,” p. 222. 

When all men have the same general thought about life 
and love the same great objects, they will be united in 
bonds which cannot be severed by differences in language 
and custom. 

This does not involve complete uniformity in thinking. 
That would separate rather than unite the race. It does 
imply, however, the same general mental attitude toward 
the meaning of this world. Men in India and' America 
find that they agree in their interpretation of the facts 
of the universe; they are united in their conception of 
what it means to live and how a reasonable man should 
respond to his fellowmen in the relations that neighbors 
must sustain to one another. When they reach this 
mutual understanding, the other differences that have 
sundered them as countrymen begin to disappear. 

Still more is this process of unity promoted when men 

74 


AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-6] 

of different races and languages begin to set their affec¬ 
tions on the same high objects. Bring a group of earnest 
men together and let them flame with devotion for the 
same purpose, and all minor differences are lost. It is 
simply impossible to keep racial distinctions in the fore¬ 
ground of thought when all the landscape is occupied by 
some noble purpose for the common good. 

After coming home from India, Dr. Barrows felt con¬ 
firmed in the judgment with which he undertook his mis¬ 
sion of interpretation, namely, “I have come to feel that 
the empire of good will is the most comprehensive now 
existing on the earth.” 

When one feels vividly his citizenship in such an empire, 
he loses any prejudice or contempt that might arise from 
his loyalty to a smaller relationship. In thought and love 
he is released into the great empire of good will. 

Sixth Week, Sixth Day: Understanding One Another 

“The ‘brotherhood of the race’ is, to me, not a 
cant phrase, but a psychological formula, repre¬ 
senting the fact that conditions all human life, 
justifies those sentiments of universal love that 
rise in hearts emancipated from prejudice, inter¬ 
prets those fine and manly affinities that make it 
possible for men trained on opposite sides of the 
globe, aliens in their respective types of culture 
and in their forms of belief, nevertheless to look 
into each other’s eyes and know that in the deep¬ 
est recesses of experience and feeling they under¬ 
stand one another and are one.” 

—Hall, “Christian Belief Interpreted by Christian 
Experience,” p. 223. 

It is undoubtedly true that many of the bitterest expe¬ 
riences of life arise from the fact that we do not under¬ 
stand one another. It is not true that if we knew all we 
would be able to forgive all in the case of fault on the part 

75 


[VI-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of another person; but mutual understanding would re¬ 
move a vast part of the sorrow of life. How shall we 
understand one another? 

Dr. Hall says that the way to understand one another is 
to enter so deeply into our common fundamental expe¬ 
riences that we see whether or not they are essentially 
alike. If they are, then we may understand one another 
better than on any other ground. 

Take the simple matter of .love for children. Here is a 
young American mother in a home of wealth and culture, 
holding her baby in her arms. And here is such a timid 
African mother as Dan Crawford writes about, hugging 
her child to her heart. These two are far apart in all 
the external conditions that education and riches bring; 
but the common love with which they guard the sacred gift 
of a little child is just the same. The superficial barriers 
separate them; the essential experiences of life unite them. 

Here is a strong American business man carrying 
through a business plan which will bring him riches. Here 
is a humble toiler in India carrying heavy loads for a few 
cents a day. Their economic situation is utterly different; 
but the ambitions and hopes in the hearts of the two men 
are identical. This is what makes us all one on 
earth as the children of the Father in heaven. 

Sixth Week, Seventh Day: The Commonwealth of 
Conscience 

“Many times, in the experience of those whose 
senses are trained by use to discern good and evil, 
the still, small Voice sounds in the soul’s ear in 
terms of mystery. Intimations of duty assert 
themselves, so subtle that we cannot put them into 
words, while of their divine authority we have no 
doubt; warnings against courses of conduct that 
to our prejudiced minds seem expedient, yet upon 
76 




AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-7] 

which the unformulated verdict of conscience sets 
its prohibition. There is but one adequate ex¬ 
planation of these phenomena. They are the Wit¬ 
ness of God in the Soul.” 

—Hall, “Christian Belief Interpreted by Chris¬ 
tian Experience,” p. 88. 

What is the meaning of this fact, that all men have an 
instinctive sense of right and wrong and that they tend 
to do the right when they see it clearly? This moral law 
within one, before which Kant stood with wonder and 
amazement, is universal and one is solemnized by the 
thought of it. Here is the basis on which all souls are 
united in a commonwealth of conscience. And this is a 
real unity which is more lasting and powerful than any 
that can be established by compacts or confirmed by 
treaties. 

Indeed, have we not learned that there is no value in 
treaties unless there is the backing of moral obligation to 
preserve them ? They become “scraps of paper” in every 
case where consciousness of moral responsibility is lack¬ 
ing. Loyalty to conscience is the way in which we may 
prove our loyalty to God. 

The realm of conscience is international. There is no 
place where its sanctions are not valid. “The ten com¬ 
mandments will not budge.” Goodness is still goodness on 
the other side of the world. Conventionalities change; but 
the undying facts of goodness, truth, duty, and love are 
the same in the tall grass of Africa and on Fifth Avenue. 
Broadway and Bengal are far apart; but the response of 
the human soul to the challenge of the right is the same 
in both. 

International ethics, therefore, is a part of the program 
of civilization. It is dangerous to work for international 
politics and leave out international ethics and religion. 
They must go together. One cannot be permanent with- 

77 


[VI-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

out the other. What a glorious privilege it is to be a mem¬ 
ber of the “commonwealth of the still, small Voice”! 

Comment for the Week 

Humanity must have interpreters. It is a pity that this 
should be so; but there is no doubt of the fact. Men and 
women do not understand each other. There are deep 
differences between races and states and neighborhoods. 
Even in the closest of personal relationships there are con¬ 
stant forces at work to separate us from one another. 

It is impossible to live with satisfaction in this condi¬ 
tion of strain. There is something deep within us all that 
demands unity and cooperation. It is an idle boast when 
any one says, “I care nothing about what others think 
of me.” As a rule those who make such statements are 
simply trying to cover up the fact that they consider very 
much what others think of them. We have no right to 
disregard the judgment of others concerning us. 

Therefore we must try constantly to understand and 
appreciate each other. There is no way in which to reach 
this sort of mutual understanding so quickly and clearly 
as by means of some fellow or comrade who can act as in¬ 
terpreter for us. The translation of one person, race, or 
civilization to another must be made by personal mediation. 
Nothing else will suffice for the grave responsibilities in¬ 
volved. 

Interpreters must have sympathy for both parties. The 
power to enter into the very thought and feeling of another 
person is a great gift. It involves something almost equal 
to living the life of someone else. There are native gifts 
of sympathy which seem to be inborn; but also there are 
cultivated powers of insight and appreciation. We must 
use the powers that we possess in order that they may 
increase, for these are faculties which grow strong by 

78 




AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-c] 

exercise. Blessed is one who can see the problem of 
another clearly and fairly. 

Every cause is held with partisan loyalty. It cannot be 
otherwise. The more we dwell upon our side of a con¬ 
troversy the stronger becomes our conviction of its justice. 
And the defender of the other cause is meantime strength¬ 
ening his convictions in the same way. Therefore we are 
moving farther apart all the time. The only hope of 
reconciliation, except for unconditional surrender by one 
of us, is the advent of an interpreter and mediator whom 
we can both understand and trust. The basis of our 
understanding of him is, naturally, his understanding of us. 

No cause has a monopoly of truth. It is not possible to 
discover the inerrant statement or the cause that is free 
from fault. Let us dare to face this fact. There is evil 
mixed with good in all that we meet in life. Even the 
highest expression of Christianity that we know is inade¬ 
quate to express the ideal of Christ. Even the most de¬ 
based of the heathen religions has the core of truth in it. 
If we could fully understand Jesus and completely make 
good with our knowledge we might have a cause unmixed 
with error; but neither of these conditions is ever realized 
by us. 

Therefore we must be critical of our own cause and 
tolerant of the one with which it is in collision. The man 
who boasts that he is completely right and his neighbor 
is wholly wrong needs an interpreter. The stick of timber 
in his own eye makes him a poor helper to get the cinder 
out of the eye of his neighbor. We have something to 
learn, even from our antagonists. 

But one cause is better than another. The prime quality 
in an interpreter is discrimination. He must be able to see 
differences clearly and to estimate their relative import¬ 
ance. While no cause is wholly free from error, some are 
far more, free from fault than others. Sometime the 

79 




[VI-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

wholly true cause must be achieved. Meantime we grope 
for it. 

As defenders and champions of our cause, we must hold 
fast to the truth of which we are assured and rejoice in 
it, and try to correct the error of which we are informed. 
It is the task of a true leader constantly to make his cause 
better. It grows under his hands, becoming more com¬ 
pact with truth and compelling with justice. The aim of 
the true leader is not to make his cause victorious, so much 
as to make it intrinsically true and thus worthy of victory. 
In the end it is the right cause that wins and it is far better 
to be right with triumph delayed than to be wrong and 
attain a temporary success. 

The true interpreter aims to establish the truest cause. 
Realizing that one cause has more truth in it than the 
other, the interpreter will recognize that which is good in 
both claims and then he will seek to set forth the greater 
good as warranting the better cause. Dr. Barrows told his 
hearers in India: 

“I come as a representative of Jesus Christ, the greatest 
cosmopolitan, the greatest humanitarian of all history, 
who, in His disclosure of God as the universal Father, 
revealed the universal principle of human unity.” 6 

But neither he nor Dr. Hall claimed that the full expres¬ 
sion of Jesus Christ’s teaching or spirit was to be found in 
any form of Christianity that had yet been wrought out. 

On the contrary, with the utmost sincerity and skill, 
Dr. Hall constantly urged that his Indian hearers should 
give expression to the religion of Christ according to the 
genius of the Eastern soul. He hoped that from such 
a new manifestation of Christ in the modern world there 
would flower in the Orient the full bloom of the Oriental 
Christ. His appeal was noble: 


6 “ Christianity the World-Religion,” p. 34. 

80 



AT THE INTERPRETER’S HOUSE [VI-c] 

“Shall the Oriental Consciousness place its sublime 
qualities at the service of Jesus Christ, and become unto 
the twentieth century what she was to the first, a prophet 
of the Highest ? The Oriental Consciousness has the gifts 
that the world needs to offset its strenuous externalism 
and guide it back to the secret place of the Most High. 
The Contemplative Life, the Presence of the Unseen, the 
Aspiration for Ultimate Being, Reverence for the Sanc¬ 
tions of the Past are the Four Gospels with which a 
Christian East may reevangelize the West; giving back to 
it the spirit of the first days; cooperating with it to lead 
the world out of its confusion, grossness, and sin, into the 
peace and purity of Jesus Christ.” 6 

The interpreter is patient. While he uses discrimina¬ 
tion and appeal, the interpreter knows the mind and heart 
of man and is patient while he waits for results. Nations 
do not change in a day. Continents are lifted slowly, al¬ 
though a sand bank may be carried away quickly with a 
flood. Therefore the interpreter takes time into partner¬ 
ship and waits. “He that believeth shall not be in haste” 
(Isa. 28: 16). 

This is a severe test for the interpreter and his friends. 
It will involve all the powers of endurance and mutual gen¬ 
erosity which the parties to the reconciliation possess. We 
shall probably not see the results in our day. “God buries 
his workmen but carries on his work.” But our faith rests 
in the final triumph of the truth. Suppose we do not share 
its triumph. Did we work for its victory? If we did, 
with all our powers, that is enough. 

• “ Christ and the Eastern Soul,” p. 207. 


8l 







CHAPTER VII 


YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS 

The period from the twelfth to the fifteenth century is 
peculiarly the age of ecclesiastical saints. The study of 
the conditions under which they arose and their contribu¬ 
tion to their generation, which in turn transformed the 
very Church which had been the source of their spiritual 
life, is fascinating and full of reward. 

We shall contrast this week the self-centered, self-ab¬ 
sorbed life of the Roman Catholic Church of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries with the altruism of St. Francis 
of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena. 

Within the formalism of the Church’s ritual St. Francis 
rediscovered the living, glowing faith which should make 
life for the individual a thing of radiance and beauty and 
reach even to the Moslem world. 

Within the narrow boundaries of a little medieval city 
in divided, warring Italy, split by hatred and jealousy 
into rival families and petty hostile bands, St. Catherine 
yearned for the spiritualizing of a church which should 
unite all, and, although a child of the common people, 
wrote her letters to Popes, to the Queen of Italy, to Eng¬ 
lishmen and Italians, to nobles and peasant friends alike. 

Daily Readings 

Seventh Week, First Day: “Our Lords , the Poor” 

“Now in those times there were three famous 
robbers who did much evil in the country. They 
came to the Hermitage one day to beg Brother 
Angelo to give them something to eat; but he re- 
82 


YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS [VII-i] 

plied to them with severe reproaches: ‘What! 
robbers, evil-doers, assassins, have you not only 
no shame for stealing the goods of others, but you 
would farther devour the alms of the servants of 
God, you who are not worthy to live, and who 
have respect neither for men nor for God, your 
Creator. Depart, and let me never see you here 
again!’ 

“They went away full of rage. But behold, the 
Saint returned, bringing a wallet of bread and a 
bottle of wine which had been given him, and the 
guardian told him how he had sent away the 
robbers; then St. Francis reproved him severely 
for showing himself so cruel. ... ‘I command 
thee by thy obedience,’ said he, ‘to take at once 
this loaf and this wine and go seek the robbers by 
hill and dell until you have found them, to offer 
them this as from me, and to kneel there before 
them and humbly ask their pardon, and pray them 
in my name no longer to do wrong but to fear 
God; and if they do it, I promise to provide for all 
their wants, to see that they always have enough 
to eat and drink. After that you may humbly re¬ 
turn hither.’” —“Fioretti,” 26. 

The writer concludes the story with the fact that after 
the robbers had thus been shown what love and kindness 
meant, they returned to Francis, and, after he had prayed 
for them and they had been assured of God’s pardon, they 
“changed their lives and entered the Order, in which they 
lived and died most holily.” 

The poor criminals were perhaps the most difficult of all 
the classes with which St. Francis had to deal. No small 
factor in the forces that drove them into crime was their 
poverty. Francis understood the power of love and gen¬ 
erosity to overcome the evil passions of men. His first act 
upon devoting himself to the service of God was to give 
away all that he possessed, and poverty was one of the 
fundamental principles of the Order which he founded. 

83 


[VII-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

When he was in Rome ,he exchanged his fine clothing for 
the rags of a beggar and stood all day in the Piazza of St. 
Peter, fasting, and begging for his food, in order that he ", 
might understand by sharing the experiences of those 
who possessed nothing. He spoke often of “our lords, the 
poor,” and his practical sympathy for them was constant. 
He was the son of a rich merchant by birth; he was the 
brother of God’s poor by choice. 

Seventh Week, Second Day: “The Patients of God” 

“It happened one time that the Brothers were 
serving the lepers and the sick in a hospital, near 
to the place where St. Francis was. Among them 
was a leper who was so impatient, so cross- 
grained, so unendurable, that everyone believed 
him to be possessed by the devil, and rightly 
enough, for he heaped insults and blows upon 
those who waited upon him, and what was worse, 
he continually insulted and blasphemed the 
blessed Christ and his most holy Mother the 
Virgin Mary, so that there was no longer anyone 
who could or would wait upon him. . . . Then 
St. Francis perceived that this leper was possessed 
by the spirit of evil, and he betook himself to his 
knees in order to pray for him. Then returning 
he said to him: ‘My son, since you are not satis¬ 
fied with the others, I will wait upon you.’ ” 

—“Conformities,” 174b, 2. 

Lepers were numerous in Italy and for several years 
the brothers of St. Francis devoted themselves to their 
care, going from lazaretto to lazaretto during the day¬ 
time, and resting at night only after they had rendered 
to these “patients of God” the necessary but most repug¬ 
nant services. 

In the willingness and joyfulness with which St. Francis 
sought out the souls of men, even in their hideous and 
repellent disguise, we find a wonderful example of that 

84 






YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS [VII-3] 

luminous Christian faith, which is restrained by no class 
barriers, whether they be set up by poverty, disease, or 
crime. The spirit of Christ manifest in the lives of men, 
is the one force which can destroy these terrible barriers 
which separate mankind and open the way for the regen¬ 
erative service of love, which shall transform society into 
the ideal of the kingdom of God. 

What a noble illustration of this principle we have 
before us today in the work of the Red Cross! Here is an 
organization which recognizes no barriers that would 
keep it from the service of human need. It asks no more 
questions than St. Francis did of the lepers. The fact that 
they were afflicted was all that was necessary to claim 
the service of the brothers. The example of the Red 
Cross may be the most potent factor finally in determining 
the spirit of the world peace that will follow a world war. 

Seventh Week, Third Day: The Christian’s Mission 

“Let us consider that God in his goodness has 
not called us merely for our own salvation, but 
also for that of many men, that we may go 
through all the world exhorting men, more by our 
example than by our words, to repent of their sins 
and bear the commandments in mind. Be not 
fearful on the ground that we appear little and 
I ignorant, but simply and without disquietude 
j preach repentance. Have faith in God, who has 
overcome the world, that his Spirit will speak in 
you and by you, exhorting men to be converted 
and keep his commandments.” 

—“The Three Companions,” 36. 

Our quotation is taken from the directions given by St. 
Francis to his followers when they separated to under¬ 
take their first tour of preaching throughout the districts 
of Italy. No one would have wondered or criticized in 
that age if these men, in search of a holy life, had isolated 

85 


[VJI-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

themselves from mankind in their little dwelling at Por- 
tiuncula, content to seek their own salvation alone. But 
instead St. Francis sent them out to preach, without 
money or material resources of any sort. They car¬ 
ried with them no invitations to occupy the pulpits of the 
churches, and no letters of introduction. Their master 
and their order were unknown. Many people thought they 
must be insane or knaves, and refused to give them 
shelter for fear of being robbed. In many places, after 
having suffered all sorts of abuse, their own shelter for 
the night was the portico of the church. 

Thus St. Francis interpreted his life in the terms of a 
mission to those whom God loves and whom Christ seeks 
to save. He was not content to save his own soul. He 
yearned for the salvation of others and worked ceaselessly 
to win all men to Christ. 

“The gates of Paradise stand shut to him who comes 
alone/’ There is no finer test of salvation than this desire 
to bring others to the source of joy and peace that we 
have ourselves found. It is the sense of brotherhood call-; 
ing us to give and to share that which we have found in the 
way of blessing. No true heart can fail to answer the call 
of the need of human souls beyond the range of our small 
world of daily duty and toil. 


Seventh Week, Fourth Day: The Universal Mission 

“ ‘Do you think,’ replied Francis warmly, and 
as if moved by prophetic inspiration, ‘that God 
raised up the Brothers for the sake of this country 
alone? Verily I say unto you, God has raised 
them up for the awakening and the salvation of 
all men, and they shall win souls not only in the 
countries of those who believe, but also in the very 
midst of the infidels.’ ” 

—Quoted by Sabatier, “St. Francis of Assisi,” 
p. 209. 

86 



YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS [VII-5] 

We have seen how St. Francis labored for the poor 
and the sick of his own country, how he sent out his fol¬ 
lowers and went himself throughout Italy and even into 
France, preaching the joyous news of Christ. In this 
quotation we find his desire reaching out even to the 
Moslem world. The Church of the thirteenth century 
had grasped the idea of sending an army—an army wear¬ 
ing the cross—into the Holy Land to wrest from the 
Saracens by force of arms the possession of the Holy 
Sepulcher and the Sacred City. But to seek peaceably 
and in love to win the hearts of the Moslems to Jesus 
Christ—this was an ideal almost beyond their compre¬ 
hension. 

And yet it was this very thing that Francis with his 
little band of followers dared to undertake. Together they 
made the long and perilous journey, this “pilgrimage of 
love.” Already he had once attempted such an expedition 
and been driven back by a storm at sea. But his courage 
and zeal were undiminished. Francis stubbornly believed 
that God raises up his saints, not alone for the salvation of 
their own immediate friends and country, but for the 
awakening and salvation of all men. 

One of the movements which has captured the imagina¬ 
tion of the Christian student world is the work for Chris¬ 
tian missions in Moslem lands under the leadership of men 
like Dr. Zwemer. After all these centuries it is like the 
renewal of the apostolic passion of Paul and the medieval 
yearning of St. Francis. This time it is not a military 
enterprise to capture the tomb of Jesus; it is a peaceful 
and loving mission to carry the spirit and power of Christ 
to a race full of intrinsically noble qualities. 

Seventh Week, Fifth Day: “Members of the Body of 
the Holy Church” 

“For it is a great cruelty that we who are Chris- 

87 



[VII- 5 ] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tians and members bound in the Body of the Holy 
Church, should persecute one another. We are 
not to do so; but to rise with perfect zeal, and to 
uplift ourselves above every evil thought/’ 

—From a letter written by St. Catherine “To 
Messer John (Sir John Hawkwood), The 
Soldier of Fortune and Head of the Com¬ 
pany that came in time of Famine.” 

The figure used here by St. Catherine is the same as 
that of St. Paul, where he speaks of Jews and Gentiles as 
members of one body. Can a physical body decide that it 
has no use for a part of itself? Would a man wish to rid 
himself of an arm or an eye? And can we imagine one 
part of the body wishing to abuse or contend with another 
part? It is equally unnatural, assert St. Paul and St. 
Catherine, that members of the Church should ever desire 
to persecute one another. 

As the eye is at the service of the feet and the feet at 
the service of the eye, or the hand serves the mouth and 
the mouth contributes to the strength of the arm, so should 
one member of the Holy Church serve another, not from 
charity or from a sense of duty, but because of the unity 
of all. 

And in this service each should “uplift himself above 
every evil thought.” “Uplift ”—the exaltation of beauty 
and truth is the dominating note of all St. Catherine’s 
utterances. 

A study of her letters would make plain how devotedly 
she sought for the Church of Italy this ideal of unity and 
exaltation of purpose combined with perfect zeal. This 
was her ideal at a time when Italy was rent by strife, 
when the Pope was living in Avignon as a luxurious exile, 
separated from the mother-city of Rome, when Christian 
families fought with one another in the very city which 
was her home. 


88 


YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS [V 1 I- 6 ] 

Seventh Week, Sixth Day: The Church the Peace- 
Maker of the World 

“With desire have I desired to see in you the 
fulness of divine grace, in such wise that you may 
be the means, through divine grace, of pacifying 
all the universal world. ,, 

—From a letter to Pope Gregory. 


“Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called 
the children of God.” The necessary result of the unity 
of the Church, the blessed consequence of the fulness of 
divine grace, is universal peace. 

It was a wonderful hope for a person to hold in such an 
age of warfare. The finest ambition for a godly Chris¬ 
tian in those days was to join in a crusade against the 
infidel. The land of Italy was filled with mercenary troops, 
who, St. Catherine said, were “the very cause and nour¬ 
ishment of war.” 

In hope of relieving Italy from the continual plague of 
battle and the horrors of bloodshed, she even urged that 
these troops be engaged if possible to assist in an expedi¬ 
tion against the Turk for the recovery of the holy places. 
“For,” she said, “there are few people so wicked that they 
are not willing to serve God by indulging their taste: all 
men would gladly expiate their sins by doing what they 
enjoy.” 

While she did not discourage but rather encouraged a 
crusade, St. Catherine perceived clearly the motives which 
lay behind this so-called holy warfare. It might be a 
necessary, though imperfect means to a great end. Her 
great wish, for which she longed “with desire,” was such 
fulness of grace for the head of the Church that in the end 
there might be universal peace, and for this she labored 
and prayed through many weary years. 

89 


[VII-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Seventh Week, Seventh Day: Diversity in Unity, the 
Plan of God 

“Such a man [the true servant of God] rejoices 
in every type that he sees, saying: Thanks be to 
Thee, Eternal Father, that Thou hast many man¬ 
sions in Thy house. ... He rejoices more in 
the differences among men than he would in see¬ 
ing them all walk in the same way; for so he sees 
more manifest the greatness of the goodness of 
God. He gets from everything the fragrance of 
roses.” —From a letter to Father William Flete. 

Father William Flete was an Englishman, who in his 
youth had become fascinated with the sunny land of 
Italy, and had decided to spend his life as a hermit. In 
his cell at Lecceto he obtained great fame for his sanctity; 
but in spite of his long hours at prayer he appears to 
have been of an austere, carping, and intolerant disposition. 
In this letter St. Catherine endeavors to lift him with 
her to a more generous and joyous attitude of mind. 

In spite of her own brilliant intellect, her ardent devo¬ 
tion, her hours of spiritual insight and vision, Catherine 
never felt herself removed above or beyond the com¬ 
mon fellowships of mankind. Everyone was her friend, 
from the poor people in the little street where she lived 
to the Pope himself, whom she affectionately called 
“Babbo.” She was the beloved daughter of all Siena and, 
indeed, of all Italy, the (< Beata Popula.” So the flame of 
international love and yearning flamed in the heart of this 
impassioned woman saint long ago. 

Differences in wealth and station seem to be slight ob¬ 
stacles in the intercourse of great souls. How foolish the 
man who desires that every man should think after one 
pattern, that all should be dressed alike, or live in exactly 
the same manner. God himself, St. Catherine says, re¬ 
joices in the different tastes and ways of men. 

90 


YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS [VII-c] 
Comment for the Week 

At first thought it seems improbable that two medieval 
saints could have anything to contribute to our modern 
ideal of international obligation. The popular concep¬ 
tion of a saint in the Middle Ages is that of an emaciated 
ascetic, abnormal in his capacities for ecstasies and visions, 
withdrawn from all the natural interests of humanity, 
spending his time in solitude in an effort to save his soul 
by continual prayer and meditation. 

While there is a real basis for this idea, it is certain that 
a Christian who is honestly and sincerely united with God, 
never can tolerate such a method of saving one’s soul. 
The fundamental Christian position was expressed by 
Jesus himself in one of the most clarifying sentences that 
ever fell from his lips: “And for their sakes I sanctify 
myself” (John 17:19). 

The word “sanctify” poorly represents the original term 
which Jesus used to express the perfection of his whole 
life, the consecration of his entire being to the will of God. 
He lived, not with any narrow purpose of saving his own 
soul, but for the sake of others. And thus Jesus himself set 
the example of the way in which we are to live. 

The process is completed in closest relations with our 
fellows and for their sakes. Isolation defeats the very 
purpose of salvation; unification makes it possible. 

The love of man for the Divine Father is not like any 
human passion, leading to the exclusion of other right 
interests. Love for God leads to love for all men; and 
with increasing devotion to God comes inevitably increas¬ 
ing desire for the good of all those whom he loves. 

It was not an accident that Jesus summed up the great 
law as he did: 

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 

91 





[VII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

great and first commandment. And a second like unto 
it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt. 
22 : 37 - 39 )- 

One can no more separate these two great laws than one 
can separate the concave from the convex side of a 
crescent moon. The two go hand in hand forever to bless 
our human life. 

In working for the good of humanity one may be guided 
by any one of many legitimate motives. But the only 
source of permanent inspiration for such a task, the joy¬ 
ous force in all useful living, is the love of God. It wells 
up in all the desert places of our work to bless them with 
refreshing beauty. We shall see it in the work of Dan 
Crawford and William Booth; it will appear in the service 
rendered to human welfare in the thought of Josiah Royce 
and William DeWitt Hyde. 

This is the energy that bears men up under the stress of 
such experiences as the early Franciscans went through. 
The reports say: 

“There were those who threw mud upon them, others 
who put dice into their hands and invited them to play, and 
others clutching them by the cowl made them drag them 
along thus. But seeing that the friars were always full of 
joy in the midst of their tribulations, that they neither, 
received nor carried money, and that by their love for one 
another they made themselves known as true disciples of 
the Lord, many of them felt themselves reproved in their 
hearts and came asking pardon for the offences which they 
had committed. They, pardoning them with all their 
heart, said, ‘The Lord forgive you/ and gave them pious 
counsels for the salvation of their souls.” 

“And when they found a church or a cross, they bowed 
with adoration, saying with devotion, ‘We adore Thee, O 
Christ, and we bless Thee here and in all churches in the 
whole world, for by Thy holy Cross Thou hast ransomed 
the world/ In fact they believed that they had found a 
holy place wherever they found a church or a cross.” 

92 


YEARNINGS OF THE SAINTS [VII-c] 

Now this tendency to find holy places everywhere, and 
to be sure that God means that the whole world should be 
holy is the result of the deepest Christian love. Not only 
our fellowmen but the entire universe become transfigured 
when we thus catch the vision of the love of God. Such 
a Christian lives in the mood of constant thanksgiving for 
the universe of which he is a part, all shot through as it is 
with love and goodness. To anyone who thinks of the 
world in this way it does not seem strange that St. Francis 
should have preached to the birds, nor that he forgot his 
weariness, disappointment, and pain in the “Canticle of 
the Sun.” He loved to call himself and his friends “God’s 
Jugglers,” because they were like those happy singers who 
went about in the churches and market-places entertaining 
people with their songs and stories; for then the jongleur 
had not degenerated into the buffoon. Like the trou¬ 
badours, these followers of Francis would make the world 
glad and even merry by the good news of the Gospel. 
The charm and strength in the story of their lives is 
found in the deep joy that pervades it all. In poverty and 
suffering, enduring all kinds of hardship, working contin¬ 
ually with the lepers, the poor, and the sinful, they 
were happy like children, transported by love for all whom 
they met and by simple wonder for the beauty of the world. 

The relation of our love for God to the interest which 
we take in others we may not be able to explain. The 
nature and source of that power which leads us to deeds 
of love done for others with natural simplicity can be 
understood only when we know the very heart of God. 
We cannot tell why union with the Ineffable, such as 
Catherine experienced, led her to acts of love and mercy 
for all the weak and sinning in Siena—but it did. True 
mysticism, the union of the soul with God, alone makes 
possible a second mystery—*he union of all mankind in 
love. We shall find this true everywhere. The great ex- 

93 


[VII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

amples of those who have loved and served their comrades 
in daily life have been those who have loved God with all 
their being. 

Emphasis has been placed in modern thinking upon the 
relations that men bear to one another. The “social gos¬ 
pel” has been brought into the forefront of our thinking. 
The mystics have been asked to step aside. But in these 
two saints we see that there is no separation between the 
two. Man’s relationship to God, his nearness to the 
Father, is the only true and permanent spring of com¬ 
passionate action. Other motives may sustain such philan¬ 
thropy for a time, but in no other is there such freedom, 
such spontaneity, such fulness of joy. 

Because we are created in the image of God, because we 
are one with him, we may be one with all the world, even 
as members of one body, or as many flowers in one garden. 

This is the warrant for the way Jesus treated the neces¬ 
sity of union with himself and the Father. He did not give 
the disciples many rules for philanthropic work; instead, 
he prayed: 

“Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also 
that believe on me through their word; that they may 
all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, 
that they also may be in us: that the world may believe 
that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast 
given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, 
even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they 
may be perfected into one; that the world may know that 
thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst 
me” (John 17:20-23). 


94 



CHAPTER VIII 


WAR FOR WORLD-WIDE SALVATION 

The lessons for this week are taken from the life-story 
of William Booth, organizer and first leader of that great 
“War” which has been waged now for the last fifty-three 
years against the forces of evH throughout the world. He 
is affectionately known as “The General”; the workers and 
fighters are called “soldiers”; and the entire body is named 
“The Salvation Army.” All these terms have taken on 
added significance since the opening of the World War 
between the Central Powers and the Allies; and therefore 
it is especially interesting to note the purposes and the 
achievements of that mighty agency for international 
moral reform and religious service, the Salvation Army. 

It is an army of reformers and rescue workers. It has 
taken the poor and weak, the sick, the impure, the criminal 
for its field, and it is waging war against the forces that 
create these conditions as well as working for the rescue 
of those who are afflicted. As one walking along the path 
of a New England hillside in the glory of the moonlight 
sees in the dust the glitter of innumerable mica scales 
from the granite rock, until the path seems strewn with 
points of light, so the Salvationist has discovered in the 
grime and dirt of downtrodden humanity the gleam of the 
divine value in countless human souls, revealed in the 
heavenly light of Christ. 

Daily Readings 

Eighth Week, First Day: “The War” in East London 
“When I saw those masses of poor people, so 
95 



[VIII-i] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

many of them evidently without God or hope in 
the world, and found that they so readily and 
eagerly listened to me, following from Open-Air 
Meeting to tent, and accepting, in many instances, 
my invitation to kneel at the Saviour’s feet there 
and then, my whole heart went out to them. I 
walked back to our West-End home and said to 
my wife: ‘O, Kate, I have found my destiny! 
These are the people for whose Salvation I have 
been longing all these years. As I passed by the 
doors of the flaming gin-palaces to-night I seemed 
to hear a voice sounding in my ears, “Where can 
you go and find such heathen as these, and where 
is there so great a need for your labors?” And 
there and then in my soul I offered myself and 
you and the children up to this great work. Those 
people shall be our people, and they shall have our 
God for their God.’ ” 

—General William Booth, quoted in “The 
Authoritative Life,” p. 56. 

One does not need to travel through star-lit spaces to 
the planet Mars in search of a new world. We do not need 
to cross wide oceans in search of new countries for our 
spirits’ adventures. There is undiscovered territory near 
at hand; and by crossing our own city we may become 
true internationalists. William Booth began his life-work 
as a reformer by moving from the west to the east of 
London, where he found his task in a new “world” called 
“Darkest England.” 

In this mission center of Whitechapel Road the influ¬ 
ence of the saloon was predominant over all others. 
Thousands of mothers, as well as fathers, visited these 
places, taking their little children with them. Even the 
children were expert gamblers. Murder and crime of 
every sort were of common occurrence, with all their 
accompanying daily tragedies. Amidst the fighting men 
and women and the vendors of vile songs and astounding 


WORLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-2] 

medicines, Mr. and Mrs. Booth began their fight against 
sin of every kind, a war which was to spread from 
country to country until it covered the world. 


Eighth Week, Second Day: Every Christian a Soldier 

“Thus my conversion made me, in a moment, a 
preacher of the Gospel. The idea never dawned 
on me that any line was to be drawn between one 
who had nothing to do but preach and a saved 
apprentice lad who only wanted ‘to spread 
through all the earth abroad/ as we used to 
sing, the fame of our Saviour. I have lived, thank 
God, to witness the separation between layman 
and cleric become more and more obscured, and 
to see Jesus Christ’s idea of changing in a moment 
ignorant fishermen into fishers of men nearer and 
nearer realization.” 

—William Booth, quoted in “The Authorita¬ 
tive Life,” p. 17. 

A world task, such as General Booth had set for him¬ 
self, has need of all possible workers. Christianity act¬ 
ing through the churches had up to that time been using 
only a small part of those who were numbered among its 
members. It had laid undue emphasis upon the words 
of Paul, in which he maintains that women should not be 
heard in religious gatherings and that the leadership of 
the churches should be given entirely into the hands of 
men. 

To General Booth’s mind, all who were saved from a 
life of sin—men, women, and children, learned men and 
ignorant savages, men of the upper classes and criminals 
from the slums—alike owed the world their lives for the 
salvation of all who might be within their reach. 

William Booth did not hesitate to set to work people 
of the so-called lower races whose lives had been trans¬ 
formed by Christianity. Thus the Bhils of India, a people 

97 


[VIII-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

armed with bows and arrows and living entirely by the 
chase when the Salvationists first went among them, had 
later a number of officers from their own ranks, who had 
learned to read their own language and ably to lead their 
own countrymen. Indeed in this army no distinctions of 
race, country, age, or color exist, as far as the appoint¬ 
ment of officers is concerned. 

As General Booth’s First Commissioner, G. S. Railton, 
says: “That union of races and languages to the glory 
of Christ, and for the highest well-being of the whole 
world; that valuing of the humblest true Soldier of the 
Cross above all the great ones of this world accounts for 
the creation, maintenance, and spread of the Army wher¬ 
ever they are seen.” 


Eighth Week, Third Day: “The War” against Ignor¬ 
ance 

“The enlarging influence of a close contact with 
Christ has hardly yet been fully realized even by 
ourselves. The peasant, whose whole circle of 
thought was so limited and stereotyped that his 
life only rose by few degrees above that of the 
animals he drove before him, is taught by the 
Army to pray and sing to the Maker and Saviour 
of the world: 

‘Give me a heart like Thine; 

By Thy wonderful power, 

By Thy grace every hour, 

Give me a heart like Thine.’ 

In a few years’ time you will find that man cap¬ 
able of directing the War over a wide stretch of 
country—dealing not merely with as many meet¬ 
ings in a week as some men would be content to 
hold in a year, and with the diversified needs of 
thousands of souls; but taking his share in any 
business transactions, or councils with 1 civic 
authorities, as ably as any city-born man. 

98 


WORLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-4] 

What has so enlarged his capacity, broadened 
his sympathies, and turned him into the polite and 
valued associate of any one, high or low, with 
whom he comes in contact? . . . 

He has simply had that oft-repeated prayer an¬ 
swered, and with the heart of a saviour of all men 
comes an interest in men’s thoughts and ways 
which leads the man ever onward, overcoming all 
his own ignorance and incapacities, for the sake of 
helping on the War.” 

—First Commissioner G. S. Railton in “The 
Authoritative Life,” p. 134. 

Christianity is indeed sufficient for the awakening of 
the soul. The leaders of the Salvation Army affirm that 
it is adequate to rescue men from the depths of their 
ignorance. In countless cases the new spiritual life has 
brought such a quickening mental vision that the mind 
itself has been transformed. The grace of God has been 
able to develop large-minded leaders and organizers out 
of men who had received none of the advantages of the 
schools. 

How can the democracy which we are seeking to defend 
at countless cost be made safe in such an illiterate nation 
as Russia? By education, it is true; but only by an edu¬ 
cation which goes hand in hand with a religion which 
cries, “Give me a heart like Thine.” Schools and teachers 
are necessary; formal learning is vital to democracy. 
But love for God and a burning sympathy for men are 
still more necessary for the sane and broad intellectual de¬ 
velopment of humanity. The war on ignorance is carried 
on not only by the clear mind but by the flaming heart. 

Eighth Week, Fourth Day: “The War ” Against Class 
Prejudice 

“Nowhere has The Army shown its marvellous 
power to unite men of all races and classes so 

99 


[VIII-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

rapidly and completely as in India. With its 
Headquarters in Simla, and its leader, formerly a 
magistrate under the Indian Government, looked 
upon almost as a felon, and imprisoned when he 
first began leading Open-Air Meetings in Bom¬ 
bay, but now honored by the highest both of 
British and Indian rulers and by the lowest of its 
outcasts equally, The Army has become the fully 
recognised friend of Governors and governed 
alike.” 

—First Commissioner G. S. Railton in “The 
Authoritative Life,” p. 136. 

The above quotation has been selected because it deals 
with the work of the Army in India, where caste hatred 
and class barriers constitute such an obstacle in the way 
of all reform. It is often easier to deal with the very real 
divisions of humanity caused by sin and ignorance, than 
with that ancient and subtle distinction known as caste, 
varying as it does in different countries and depending 
upon widely different bases for its authority and strength. 

But whether class distinctions find their source in the 
titles conferred by royalty, or in the wealth which business 
ability has brought, in a long line of renowned ancestors, 
or in the sharply-drawn divisions of the caste system of 
India, they are all alike problems to be faced fairly and 
dealt with frankly by any reformer who seeks the welfare 
and elevation, socially, mentally, or morally, of the so- 
called lower classes. 

The ability of General Booth as a reformer and the 
validity of the truths which he taught met, therefore, with 
a rigid testing when brought into conflict with the class 
distinctions of ancient India. That such a religion could 
be recognized as a glad and welcome message by both 
governors and governed alike was a mighty triumph. 

One of the beneficent results of the Great War is the 
inevitable influence that it has exerted in overthrowing 
100 


WORLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-5] 

caste, especially in India. Thousands of soldiers have 
fought side by side, sharing each other’s lot, saving each 
other from deadly peril. It will be impossible for these 
men to think of one another again as separated by any 
artificial barriers of social caste. A man who behaved 
himself like a “white man,” in the phrase of the soldier, is 
going to be “white” whether the color of his skin happened 
to be yellow or brown or black. But this is only prophetic 
of the final overthrow of caste by the power of the Chris¬ 
tian Gospel. 

Eighth Week, Fifth Day: “The War" against Im¬ 
morality 

“But all at once, in 1902, God gave the little 
company a great opportunity. For years already 
some faithful Japanese under missionary influ¬ 
ences, had been lamenting the position of the girls 
given over to immorality, who were severed for 
life from the rest of the community, and kept 
under police supervision, in a special quarter 
called the Yoshiwara of each city, as well as cut 
off from all the hopes of the Gospel. A law had 
indeed been passed allowing such girls as might 
wish to abandon their awful calling to do so; but 
it was so administered as practically to remain a 
dead letter. 

‘Why/ thought our leaders, ‘should we not 
issue a special edition of our War Cry, explaining 
Christ’s love and power to save the deepest 
sunken in sin, and our Rescue Work, and then go 
and sell it in the Yoshiwara?’ 

The idea was carried out, and to all appearance, 
the first day, with wonderful success. ... We 
were fully recognised as the loving friends of the 
friendless and oppressed, and from that day our 
standing in the country was assured. 

Not many girls were gathered into our little 
Rescue Home; but thousands learnt the way of 
escape from their houses of bondage, and within 
101 


[VIII-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

a few years many thousands returned to their old 
homes all over the country.” 

—First Commissioner G. S. Railton in “The 
Authoritative Life,” p. 164. 

As we must look to the Army’s work in India for the 
most signal triumph over class prejudice, so we may turn 
to the story of its achievements in Japan for a remarkable 
illustration of its victory over immorality. A company of 
people unable as yet even to speak the language, had 
proved itself capable of freeing from the worst of bond¬ 
age the lost women of Japan, and the country was not 
slow to recognize the value of the Army, and its Gen¬ 
eral, William Booth. 

This work, so successfully begun in Japan, was carried 
into every country whither the Salvation Army found 
its way. The sin was an international one, and it was 
fought from country to country. 

It is customary to speak somewhat lightly of “the social 
evil” and “segregated districts”; but the true significance 
of these terrible facts never will be understood until we 
remember that the victims of these conditions are our 
spiritual kindred, the sons and daughters of the common 
Father. When we work at this baffling problem from the 
standpoint of the truth that the “image of God in man” 
is of infinite value, then we gain the right idea and motive 
with which to approach it. The problem of social vice is 
a matter to be dealt with on the basis of international 
brotherhood. 

Eighth Week, Sixth Day: “The War” against Disease 

“Our officers in every town and village are sup¬ 
plied with all the medicines and bandages they can 
use, for the Government has found that they live 
amongst the poorest all the time, and are always 
ready to bathe and bandage their wounded limbs 
102 


WORLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-6] 

and feet, or to give them the few medicines needed 
to combat the ordinary maladies. Moreover, from 
some terrible losses by death of officers, in our 
earliest days there, [Java], it was made only too 
plain to every one that our officers would not 
abandon their people in times of cholera or other 
epidemics, but would rather suffer and die with 
them. . . . 

But when it was seen that we had officers not 
only willing and ready to live and die with the 
people, but, also capable of lifting them into a new 
life, and of carrying out any simple administrative 
duties that might be laid upon them, we had first 
one and then another of the Government’s insti¬ 
tutions offered for our care, as well as the provi¬ 
sioning of the hospitals. . . . 

The first Leper Institution placed in our charge 
was so rapidly transformed from a place of de¬ 
spair and misery into a home of Salvation, hope 
and joy, that the Government naturally desired 
to see more such institutions, adequate to receive 
the entire leper population of the island, which 
is, alas! large.” 

—First Commissioner G. S. Railton in “The 
Authoritative Life,” p. 170. 

We have taken our illustration of the “War” on disease 
from the work of the Salvation Army for the sick and 
hopelessly diseased in Java, because it represents inter¬ 
national sympathy for one of the most forbidding types of 
human misery. As St. Francis and his companions under¬ 
took the task of caring for the lepers without any of the 
advantages of modern medicine, so now the Salvation 
Army workers toil for these helpless people. 

It was not simply a ministry to the body, however. The 
workers sought to bring the sufferers into spiritual rela¬ 
tions with Christ while they served their physical distress. 
Others dealt with the matter from the standpoint of med¬ 
ical relief; the Salvationists united the two ministries. A 
new spirit was born while the body was cared for. 

103 


[VIII-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

This deep interest in the sick persisted up to the last of 
the General’s life. Only three months before his death 
he urged his youngest daughter that more should be done 
in the hospitals for the comfort and blessing of the sick 
and dying. Every land and all of life claimed the love of 
William Booth. 

Eighth Week, Seventh Day: “The War” against 
Crime 

“Recently, the General was promised, in the 
course of interviews with authorities, a consider¬ 
able extension in the United Kingdom of the 
liberty to deal with prisoners, which we have long 
enjoyed in America and Canada. The long night, 
when prisoners were treated only as troublesome 
animals against whom society needed protection, 
seems to be passing, and with the new, earnest 
resolve to try and fit them for a better life, which, 
without God’s help, can never be done, we are 
looking forward to greatly improved opportu¬ 
nities. In India, as has already been noted, many 
persons belonging to the criminal tribes are al¬ 
ready under our care, and, wherever we have the 
opportunity to prove what the power of God can 
do in such hearts, there can be no doubt of the 
ultimate result.” 

—First Commissioner G. S. Railton in “The 
Authoritative Life,” p. 172. 

Gen. Booth believed that just as the grace of God had 
power to enlighten the intellect and to do away with 
ignorance, so too it had power to regenerate and trans¬ 
form the heart of the vilest criminal. Prisons should not 
be merely places of confinement and punishment, but 
should aim at restoration of the condemned person to the 
activities of healthy and useful life. 

This conception of our duty to criminals has made 
wonderful progress during the past generation. There has 
been widespread approval also of the skill of the Salvation 

104 


WQRLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-c] 

Army in the treatment of this difficult problem. In 
Switzerland and Germany their work has been subsidized 
by the Government. 

In an Australian prison, where men were under sentence 
of death for many crimes other than murder, a certain man 
was in such agony of remorse that no one near was able 
to sleep because of his cries. At last one of the wardens, 
who was a Salvationist, went to the distressed man, and 
the forgiveness and peace of God entered into the little 
cell, where before there had been nothing but mental and 
moral agony. If, in such times of trial, Christianity has 
this power, how much may it accomplish when persistent 
endeavor has brought it fully into all the prisons of the 
world! 

Jesus made one of the conditions of reward in the last 
great trial of all souls this: “I was sick, and ye visited 
me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me” (Matt. 25: 36). 
There is no finer test of our brotherliness than the instant 
and healthy desire to do something for the good of those 
who suffer the penalties of the courts for their crimes. 
This is an exhibition of moral internationalism.' 

Comment for the Week 

Allusion Jias been made in this chapter to the efforts of 
the Salvation Army on behalf of criminals, the ignorant, 
the immoral, the diseased, and all who in any way suffer 
from sin of every kind. This is the great “war on the 
hosts that keep the underworld submerged.” All this 
endeavor was summed up by Gen. Booth in his vast and 
carefully worked-out plan for social work. The num¬ 
ber of social enterprises comprised in this plan reached the 
astonishing total of 957, and the activities were arranged 
under nineteen different heads. 

This plan was not an ideal for one country alone. 
105 


[VIII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

That in itself would have been most admirable. But it 
was something far wider in its scope. It was the glorious 
ambition—an air-castle we might have been warranted 
in calling it, as many of its opponents did, if it had not so 
thoroughly proved its practical worth—for the reform of 
the unfortunate and debased classes in all nations. 

Gen. Booth’s life was a long one, and he was able to 
continue his arduous labors almost up to the time of his 
death at the age of eighty-five. But even with this long 
term of active service it is astonishing what this remark¬ 
able leader was able to accomplish. From an obscure 
apprentice lad of Nottingham he became a leader of the 
moral and spiritual activities of a vast army of Christian 
workers throughout the world. More than half a hundred 
different countries were represented in the universal 
Army. At his death messages of sympathy came from all 
quarters of the world. Kings and premiers and humble 
people united in paying honor to this man who had dared 
to dream of the rescue of humanity from the worst evils 
that had afflicted the race, and who had inspired thousands 
of men with his ideal. Scarcely a country in the civilized 
world could have been found in which men and women- 
were not mourning their beloved leader. 

“Among peoples of whom we have never heard, and in 
languages of which we do not know even the alphabet,” 
wrote the Daily Chronicle of London, “this universal grief 
ascends to heaven—perhaps the most universal grief ever 
known in the history of mankind. One realizes something 
of the old man’s achievement by reflecting on this unusual 
grief. It will not do to dismiss him lightly. More, it will 
not do to express a casual admiration of his character, an 
indulgent approbation of his work. The man was unique. 
In some ways he was the superman of his period. Never 
before has a man in his own lifetime won so wide a meas¬ 
ure of deep and passionate human affection.” 

106 


WORLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-c] 

In these days, when the word superman is so current 
and is connected with ambition utterly selfish and reliance 
upon physical force, the use of the word in connection with 
this universal lover of mankind is significant. The true 
superman is the one who seeks the highest welfare and 
peace of all the world. 

Enough has been said in confirmation of the interna¬ 
tional character of the work of William Booth. The fact 
that most concerns us is the source of this universal pas¬ 
sion. For every living person, William Booth believed, is 
in duty bound to assume some active part in this stupen¬ 
dous burden of world salvation. 

It is sometimes said that his remarkable success was 
due to his skill as an organizer. It is true that the organ¬ 
ization of the Army was a great achievement; but the real 
secret of his power is not found there. It lay rather in 
his ability to imagine the sufferings of others until they 
became a reality. Then he had the power to sympathize 
so deeply with them that he won their faith and following. 

Harold Begbie says: 

“Because General Booth realized these sorrows so very 
truly and so very actually, he was able to communicate 
his burning desire for radical reformation to other peo¬ 
ple. The contagiousness of his enthusiasm was the obvi¬ 
ous cause of his extraordinary success, but the hidden 
cause of this enthusiasm was the living, breathing, heart¬ 
beating reality of his sympathy with sorrow. When he 
spoke to one of the sufferings endured by the children of 
a drunkard, for instance, it was manifest that he himself 
felt the very tortures and agonies of those unhappy chil¬ 
dren—really felt them, really endured them. His face 
showed it. There was no break in the voice, no pious 
exclamation, no gesture in the least theatrical or senti¬ 
mental. One saw in the man’s face that he was enduring 
pain, that the thought was so real to him that he him¬ 
self actually suffered, and suffered acutely. If we had 
imagination enough to feel as he felt the dreadful fears 

107 


[VIII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

and awful deprivation of little children in the godless slums 
of the great cities, we, too, should rush out from our com¬ 
fortable ease to raise Salvation Armies. It would be tor¬ 
ture to sit still. It would be impossible to do nothing.” 1 

This power vividly and actually to picture the suffering 
of others far away from us in Belgium and Poland and 
Armenia has found new expression with us in America 
since the great World War began. We seem to be able as 
never before to have an international imagination, a world- 
sympathy. In our comfortable life, separated by natural 
barriers from the other nations, our thought of human 
suffering has been rather provincial in its limits. But 
within the last four years the whole world has been 
brought into our range of vision and the sense of responsi¬ 
bility for the relief of misery has been pressed upon us in 
every way. The response has been marvelous. America 
has loved and toiled and prayed as never before. There 
are no longer any people to whom we bear no relation. 
The figures that “challenge our bread and wine” are not 
fleeting ghosts, but real men and women who are suffer¬ 
ing and we must help them. 

It is easier now to understand how St. Catherine, feel¬ 
ing herself one with all the world, could exclaim when 
she saw the failure of the Church to meet the obligations 
involved in the fact: 

“My sins! My sins are the cause of all. If I were per- 
pectly aglow with the fire of the Divine love, I should pray 
the Lord so ardently that He, who is all merciful, would 
cause all to be kindled by the fire that should burn in 
me. 

Thus the consciousness of the suffering of the world 
must be transformed into practical and persistent effort 
for the cure of that suffering. We must have an interna¬ 
tional sympathy turned into an international service. 

1 Quoted in “The Authoritative Life.” 

108 




WORLD-WIDE SALVATION [VIII-c] 

William Booth is the great example of this achieve¬ 
ment. Like John Wesley, he “thought in continents.” He 
possessed what Sir John Seeley called “the enthusiasm for 
humanity.” He knew how to set in motion the active 
agencies which should bring rescue to the people whose 
suffering made him suffer. 

It might seem as if this international sympathy and 
enthusiasm would bring one only the inevitable pain that 
must follow from such an experience. But this is not all. 
The joy of life is known truly only to those who have this 
power to sympathize and to help. To a Christian with this 
spirit all happiness also comes and flows out in thanksgiv¬ 
ing. 


CHAPTER IX 


MADE OF ONE BLOOD 

From the beginning of Christian history, the funda¬ 
mental idea of the unity of all mankind has been expressed 
through missions. The “divine urge” in these world¬ 
wide sacrificial movements has been an unshaken faith ini 
the worth of mankind and the essential brotherhood of 
all the races of men. We shall turn to Africa for am 
example of this fundamental faith as it is expressed in the 
writings and the word of Dan Crawford. The title of 
his well-known book is the best possible illustration of 
the principle that we are studying. It is “Thinking 
Black.” This somewhat enigmatic title means that we 
never can understand the African until we actually think 
as he does, that is, think black. Then we discover the 
essential unity between the men in the long grass of 
Central Africa and men in London and New York. Craw¬ 
ford’s style is quaint and concise; but his interpretation of 
Africa is unsurpassed and his illustrations of true interna¬ 
tionalism are clear and full of dramatic suggestion. 

Daily Readings 

Ninth Week: First Day: The Universal God-Yearn¬ 
ing of Human Souls 

“Even Cicero long ago could declare that ‘there 
is no nation so brutish as not to be imbued with 
the conviction that there is a God.’ So, too, 
Plutarch: ‘We may search the world throughout, 

\ and in no region where man has lived can we find 
a city without the knowledge of a God or the prac- 
no 


MADE OF ONE BLOOD [IX-i] 

tice of a religion.’ And the whole continent of 
Africa choruses an eager ‘Yes!’ to these 
ancients.” 

—“Thinking Black,” p. 277. 

In the deepest instincts and passions of the human soul 
all races share. The belief in a great all-powerful Being 
is not a matter of training. It is instinctive in every 
human heart. It is only in civilized lands, where students 
have acquired the mental habits which lead them to ques¬ 
tion all things, that atheists are found. The Africans 
whom Crawford describes in his “Thinking Black” would 
not even argue such an unquestionable conclusion as the 
existence of a God. 

“ ‘How do I know there is a God ?’ asks the African. 
‘How do I know my goat passed over that wet ground if 
not by the footprints she left in the mud?’ Thus any such 
phrase as ‘laws of Nature’ is unknown to him, for an act 
postulates an agent, and what is Nature but God’s mere 
minion? No atheist could hoodwink a black man with 
the notion that mere laws explain everything, for your 
negro retorts, ‘As if a law does not require construction 
as well as a world.’ Another of these men proved the 
existence of God by the quiet query: ‘Whoever forgot 
there was a Sun?’ A proof this that he reads his Book 
of Nature so well that in every rock and tree God is star¬ 
ing him in the eyes and shouting in his ears.” 1 

There was no need for Dan Crawford in his preaching 
to persuade his black audience that over us all there is a 
Creator and Lord. Made in the image of God himself, 
all human hearts, even the most savage, recognize the 
witness which the works of God bear to the existence of 
the divine Creator. 


Thinking Black,” p. 2 ^^. 

III 



[IX-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Ninth Week, Second Day: God Reveals Himself to 
All Men 

“In our zeal for God’s written record we are too 
apt to treat all this as a weird and doubtful busi¬ 
ness—'mere misty dream. Forgetful of the fact 
that God’s own book it is that declares, ‘in a dream 
. . . he openeth the ears of men.’ Forgetful, 

likewise, that if England does not get these divine 
dreams it is because England, a land full of Bibles, 
does not need them. Forgetful, finally, that God 
may speak to those to whom He does not write.” 

—“Thinking Black,” p. 58. 

Crawford has been relating in the pages just preceding 
this remark the story of a dream embassy. Like the wise 
men of old, this company of old and solemn-eyed men, 
“with a curious old-world look in their faces,” made a 
pilgrimage to tell the story of the wonderful dream to the 
brother king, the friend of their own monarch. They 
had traveled a long way with their sacred story and 
Crawford tells us how he listened to it, “not in the temper 
of mere expediency,” but with real respect. 

The story-tellers pointed toward the sky with uplifted 
hands. 

They told me “of the stately goings of God in their far¬ 
away marsh; how that He challenged their king as to his 
dignity; how that the king responded with his long array 
of titles; and how that the more he vaunted before God 
the less did his strength become. Yet again and again did 
God so ask him who he was, and just so often did their 
king make this foolish boast of dignity—only to find his 
strength oozing out of his body. But just as in painting 
light is brought out by shade, so this king learned the 
secret of power from this very secret of weakness. For 
finally God said He would ‘make an end,’ and this word 
‘end’ was the beginning of bliss. Said the monarch: 
‘King? no king am I but a worthless slave. All kingship 
is Thine and all power!’ Then it was the wondrous tide 

112 



MADE OF ONE BLOOD 


[IX-3] 

of power flowed back into his body: the weakling now a 
giant; the abject a strong man made strong out of weak¬ 
ness. Mere dream though it was, it has solemnly crystal¬ 
lised into dogma, and here am I a Missionary stumbling 
across these other ‘dream’ Missionaries in the grass.” 3 

Surely the God who spoke of old to men, as recorded 
in the Old Testament, still reveals himself, even to men 
of savage race. 

Ninth Week, Third Day: “Let Everything That Hath 
Breath Praise the Lord” 

“Certain it is that for centuries this quaint song 
of deliverance has been sung as a cast-iron 
formula by all Shila men who were capsized but 
came safe to land. Greeting him with song at the 
Njiko, or landing-place, all the women-folk burst 
out into a ‘God-song/ as it is called, the escaped 
fisherman joining them in the chorus. Simple 
enough in its diction, the whole value of this 
praise-song is to be found in its archaic terminol¬ 
ogy, the very grammar of the thing being steeped 
in most ancient twang: 

‘O God, the minnows 
Had nigh feasted on me; 

But Thou, O God, 

Didst rescue me!’ ” 

—“Thinking Black,” p. 422. 

The impulse 'to thanksgiving is inherent in every breast. 
It is only in the crowded, thoughtless pressure of civil¬ 
ized life that the realization of God’s goodness and grati¬ 
tude to him are crowded out. Because of our training in 
conventionalities, our long-continued repression of all 
emotional expression, we hardly know how to manifest 
the gratitude and joy which we do feel. 


113 


* “ Thinking Black,” p. 57* 



[IX-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The little child prances with excitement when he re¬ 
ceives a gift, or when his father comes home. We read in 
the Book of Kings how David danced before the Lord. 
So Crawford found his negro converts dancing for very 
praise. 

It is a solemn duty. Such dancers do not smile or laugh. 
“The amazing, maddening mix-up of the prayer in the 
heart and the prance in the feet,” Crawford calls it. His 
negro friend called it, “only praise getting out at the toes.” 
Pointing to her body, she described the motion of this im¬ 
pulse to praise, one thrill passing from the heart up to the 
lips, the other darting down to the prancing feet. Craw¬ 
ford points out the moral of all this. Our praise, our joy 
over God’s goodness should not spend itself only through 
our speech; it should result in action, “should descend to 
the feet in real walk.” 

Ninth Week, Fourth Day: “Mama” 

“Even in grinding slavery your despised negro 
chattel gets poetry out of his prose of life by 
thinking of the old home in the Luban marsh 
where ‘mama’ (yes, the same old English word) 
is longing for her lost bairn.” 

—“Thinking Black,” p. 221. 

There are wonderful tales and histories entangled in the 
roots of our commonest words. Back before ever the ear¬ 
liest records of history were set down, babies called out in 
those syllables easiest for untrained lips, “mama”; and 
mother after mother appropriated that dear first word for 
herself, in Africa and in Europe and in America, with the 
same joyful delight that baby was learning to talk. This 
little word is the strongest testimony that mother-love is 
the same the world around. 

True, you say, even the beasts will fight and die for 
their offspring; but does the instinct of motherhood out- 

114 


MADE OF ONE BLOOD [IX-5] 

last those few first months among savage people? In 
“Thinking Black” we read of one old mother who had just 
been redeemed from her fifth term of slavery. Five times 
she had sold herself into bondage simply that she might 
be near her boy, who was a slave. Crawford says the story 
was all “told in that inconsequential tone that makes 
one proud to live and die for old Africa.” The woman 
never thought of her acts as a matter for pride. They 
were the natural outcome of the mother-love which she 
shared with all womanhood. 

The thought of this mother-love, persisting even after 
death, is the comfort of the African in manhood as well 
as in boyhood. Is he in trouble? The evil spirits whose 
enmity he has incurred may torment him. He may suffer 
many a sorrow. But he believes that his mother, though 
unseen, suffers with him in every pang. She is never too 
busy or too far removed to trouble about him. His earthly 
“mama” becomes his spiritual defender. 

Thus not only in his Teachings after God, in his impulse 
to praise, is the black man like ourselves. He is like us 
also in his deepest human loves, in the relations between 
mother and child, in the love between husband and wife, 
and in the love for home, as we shall continue to show 
in the following lessons. 

Ninth Week, Fifth Day: “For Better, for Worse, for 
Richer, for Poorer, in Sickness or in Health, till 
Death —” 

“One for Mushidi! He tells me that he has 
never yet suffered living sacrifices in the capital 
here, whereas all around every little H. R. H. 
Nobody cannot be buried without them. . . . 

They always say that these and the like go to their 
own death with alacrity; and when I protest later, 
they remind me of a case very well known to me 
by a personal link. ... On the surface, here is 
115 


[IX-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the kind of incident claimed as a feather in the 
cap of polygamy, and a mad Mormon would chal¬ 
lenge monogamy to produce in like environment a 
like demonstration of conjugal affection. But 
such conjugal love of two souls only proves 
monogamy.” 

—'‘Thinking Black,” pp. 285-287. 

What is this incident from which Crawford draws the 
conclusion that the true mating of two souls is possible, 
even in benighted ignorant Africa, with its custom of 
many wives for one husband? Mrs. John Anderson and 
her Jo, so Crawford calls them, were an old couple who 
had lived together for many years until old age and feeble¬ 
ness had overtaken John. Only a week before they had 
hobbled up the hill to pay their last visit to the missionary 
together, and now John was dead. It was the barbarous 
custom of the country that the wife should be buried with 
the husband—how many a young and pretty bride had been 
dragged to a slow death by suffocation because of this 
heathen mandate! But the victim must be physically per¬ 
fect, free from all blemish. 

Mrs. John Anderson might easily have escaped such a 
fate with honor. But not she! Contrary to all the en¬ 
treaties of her friends, she made all the preparations her¬ 
self for the death union with her lord. She ordered the 
catching and cooking of her best barnyard fowl for her 
last supper. It was a feast-night with her. She assisted 
in her own last toilet. 

“And then, in the evening, when the sough of her 
first night-wind passes over the great fen-bog, behold 
this old living sacrifice hobbling along with her gourd 
tobacco pipe in its little basket to attend her own funeral 
—no wail: nothing! and the dark eternal sets in. There 
in a death of suffocation, she received her ‘John Anderson, 
my Jo!’ in death’s embrace, in life and death one. Surely’ 

116 


MADE OF ONE BLOOD 


[IX-6] 

here in a pathetic sense we see them sleeping together at 
the foot of life’s hill after ‘mony a canty day’ together.” 3 

Who can deny that the love which binds husband and 
wife together in Africa and in our own homeland has 
many elements in common? 

Ninth Week, Sixth Day: “Home, Sweet Home ,f 

“Kwetu! is his magic word for ‘Home,’ and 
there is clannish courtesy in the very grammar of 
the plural: you dare not say ‘My Home’ in broad 
Africa. ‘Our Home’ is the compound family 
formula. In fact, there is no such word as ‘Home’ 
apart from plural usage, which proves that en¬ 
shrined within the one word ‘Our Home’ there 
is locked up the vision of all his kinsmen 
dear. This astounding attempt of a slave race to 
coin and copyright a specialty in such a word as 
‘Home’ even beats its famous English rival: beats 
it, I say, because at least we can use ‘Home’ with 
or without any pronoun we like, but the African 
has so tricked the tongue that no word for ‘Home’ 
exists apart from a pronoun—‘Our Home’ or 
‘Your Home.’ To say mere ‘Home’ is not merely 
bad form, but no form at all. There is no such 
usage.” 

—“Thinking Black,” p. 423. 

What do we mean by home ? Not the room in the board¬ 
ing house which you or I have all to ourselves, hardly the 
hotel apartment, “parlor, bedroom, and bath.” What do 
we mean by home ? Ask the soldier in the trenches or the 
sailor on the convoy-boat. He knows, he knows! It 
is somewhere close to the heart of the person we love 
and of whom we dream. Where she is is Home. 

Of course it is always “our Home” or “your Home,” 
and just because of this usage we know that the black 


•“Thinking Black,” p. 287. 


ii 7 



[IX- 7 ] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

man understands the true meaning of home, that for him 
and for us alike it is always that one spot upon earth 
which the wonder of love has transformed from a mere 
place to “Home”! 

“Can Vemba’s land be old? Never! 

Yes, old it may be 
And cease to be free, 

But Vemba is Vemba for ever.” 4 

Ninth Week, Seventh Day: We Shall Live Again 

“Without labouring the point, I have already 
urged that the most obdurately deaf negro (deaf 
to your entreaties, I mean) would resent with ex¬ 
treme asperity any notion that he denied the im¬ 
mortality of the soul: that is not arguable.” 

—“Thinking Black,” p. 423. 

The belief in the immortality of the soul is not sub¬ 
ject to argument, so the black man says. It is not cap¬ 
able of proof. “Neither will they be persuaded, if one rise 
from the dead,” said Jesus in speaking of those who would 
not listen to the teachings of Moses and the prophets 
(Luke 16: 31). It is something deeper, more fundamental 
than any doctrine to which we give our intellectual assent 
—it is an instinct of every human heart. 

Why should the living wife accompany her dead husband 
into the grave, except for the expectation of a future life 
together? Her sleeping lord must not awake to loneliness 
without her beside him. 

Just as the birds build nests for the coming baby robins, 
just as the cocoon is spun for the butterfly which the 
spinner cannot even imagine, just as the salmon climbs the 
rapids to the inland waters, and the young birds wing their 
way southward to a tropical land which they have never 


4 “ Thinking Black," p. 219. 


Il8 



MADE OF ONE BLOOD [IX-c] 

known, thus instinctively the negro prepares his dead for 
the awakening. 

Says Crawford, “Moral: The thirst for the Infinite 
proves the Infinite. ‘Sir, I hold,’ says Emerson—and 
well spake he—‘I hold that God Who keeps His Word with 
the birds and fishes in all their migratory instincts will 
keep His word with man.’ ” 6 

Comment for the Week 

When we attempt to cross the boundaries of our own 
race relationships we do not find ourselves among strang¬ 
ers. There can be no race upon this earth more widely 
separated from our own than are the black people of the 
interior of Africa. If the case is proved for them, surely 
it is proved for all. 

Whose word is to be taken for their sharing with us the 
deepest and most sacred emotions of humanity? Not that 
of the business man who has entered the continent to ex¬ 
ploit the black folk for the benefit of his own pocket-book; 
not that of the owner who has regarded the slave as only 
one of his many material possessions, and has left the bond- 
servant no choice but to regard him as his tyrannical and 
masterful enemy. How much of our real selves would we 
reveal to a foe who had us in his power? Surely we can 
only take the word of those slave-owners who have by 
their kindness led the negro to regard them as his friends, 
so that he has been willing to open his heart to them. 
Above all ought we to be able to trust the word and judg¬ 
ment of a Crawford, who has lived among them in their 
native home for twenty years with the continual aim of 
learning to think as they do. 

We may be the more willing to accept his testimony 
when we find it in accordance with the biblical record. 


119 


6 “ Thinking Black,” p. 275. 



[IX-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

St. Paul himself believed that God had not confined his 
revelation to his chosen people or the medium of his com¬ 
munication to the Holy Scripture, but that at all times 
and in all lands he had revealed himself to all people. 

“God,” he said to the people of Athens, “hath made of 
one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face 
of the earth, and hath determined the times before ap¬ 
pointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they 
should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him 
and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 
for in him we live and move and have our being; as 
certain also of your own poets have said, For we are 
also his offspring” (Acts 17:26-28). 

In approaching this so-called heathen people, Crawford 
attempted to build upon the foundation of this knowledge 
of God which was already in their hearts. When asked 
their name for “Him,” the Chairman Chief of the meet¬ 
ing answered, “Vidie Mukulu”—the great King. Craw¬ 
ford next asked what kingship involved. Laws, a judg¬ 
ment-seat, subjects, loyal or rebellious, rewards and pun¬ 
ishments, and the quelling of revolution—they named just 
those things for which kingship has always stood. It is 
easy to imagine how Crawford followed up the path 
which they had opened for him. Laws—there was God’s 
Word waiting for them in his hand; subjects, were they 
loyal or rebellious ? And so on! 

Surely all were created in the image of God and he has 
revealed himself to all. There are superficial differences, 
that we must never deny. Ideas which have wrought 
themselves into beauty in the lands of culture, in Africa 
find grotesque or hideous expression. We laugh at their 
conception of what is ornamental, their huge bracelets and 
nose-rings. But dare we laugh just now at the dresses 
and faces painted red, when there is a powder puff and a 
box of rouge upon the dressing table of almost every 

120 


MADE OF ONE BLOOD [IX-c] 

English lady? In Saint Paul’s day, as Crawford calls to 
our remembrance, Roman ladies hesitated about dyeing 
their hair and painting their faces lest they might become 
like the “woad-stained Britons”—ifor we were the savages 
of those days! 

We would not like to dine with our African brothers 
because there is a common dish, and, there being no 
spoons, the gravy must be mopped up with a bit of mush. 
But did not our ancestors eat in precisely the same way, 
using their fingers, even down to the time of Henry the 
Eighth? Did not even Jesus at the Last Supper pass the 
sop, when he had dipped it, to Judas? 

If there is any one feature of our civilization which we 
consider “advanced” it is the suffrage movement, with the 
attendant “new woman.” But Africa led the way in that 
long ago. 

“Budindu is the name of this female freemasonry, and 
many a feminine titter can be overheard at the expense of 
the men. The rites of initiation are nameless, but the 
general idea is that of a Benefit Society, whose supreme 
function is to scrutinize the cause of death of any of its 
members. As African men often play their women the 
scurviest of tricks, it is absolutely necessary that these 
women combine in some sort to beat the tom-tom of their 
sex. This secret society it was that decreed a ‘Married 
Woman’s Property Act’ long before the belated English 
Act of 1883, and on the death of one of their guild they 
pounce down on her moveable estate ‘to the uttermost 
farthing.’ Some of these female Club decisions have in¬ 
deed assumed portentous proportions in the high politics 
of Central Africa, a notorious instance being the ceding 
of the whole north shore of Lake Mweru to satiate a 
Budindu Club claim.” 6 

So we find the foibles and also the social movements of 
our own people repeated in these cruder grotesque efforts 
of heathen Africa. 


8 “ Thinking Black, p. 234. 


121 



[IX-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The negro emperor, Mushidi, himself says: “We negroes 
are one in racial unity with you whites—different yet the 
same. A crocodile is hatched from an egg—and a flying 
bird from an egg.” 

“The Earth is a beehive,” runs the Bantu proverb. “We 
all enter by the same door but live in different cells.” 

There are minor differences, but one great love for God 
and wife and home and children, various customs, crudities, 
and ignorance overwhelming, but underneath them all a 
great common humanity, struggling upward and yearning 
for God and truth. 

“Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple. 

Who have faith in God and Nature, 

Who believe that in all ages 
Every human heart is human, 

That in even savage bosoms 

There are longings, yearnings, strivings 

For the good they comprehend not, 

That the feeble hands and helpless, 

Groping blindly in the darkness, 

Touch God’s right hand in that darkness 
And are lifted up and strengthened;— 

Listen to this simple story. 

To this Song of Hiawatha!” 

Thus Longfellow wrote of the Indians, the savage people 
of our own land. The same great truth holds good for 
our colored races—it holds good for all mankind! “God 
hath made of one blood all nations of men.” Without this 
fact our hope for the future brotherhood of all mankind 
would be without foundation; because of it such a hope 
cannot fail of ultimate fulfilment. 


122 


CHAPTER X 


THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER 

From the beginning the Christian religion has been 
spread abroad and sustained by the method of public pre¬ 
sentation in oral address. Upon this it has relied for the 
definition of its ideals and the defense of its truth rather 
than upon printed literature. And Christian preaching has 
borne continuous witness to the universal elements in its 
doctrines and duties. We have chosen as the example of 
this influence Phillips Brooks. Yet specific addresses on 
the international aspects of Christianity do not stand out 
in any prominent way in his sermons. All his preaching, 
however, moved in the realm of universal and international 
ideals. As he said so well: “What the simple constitution 
is to a highly-elaborated state, enveloping all its functions 
with a few great first principles which none of those func¬ 
tions must violate or transcend—such to the manifold ac¬ 
tions of a man is some great simple conception of what life 
is and what it means, surrounding all details, giving them 
unity, simplicity, effectiveness.” So Phillips Brooks be¬ 
lieved that God and man belong to each other and there¬ 
fore all men on earth belong to each other also. 

Daily Readings 

Tenth Week, First Day: This Is God’s World 

“There is no human affection, of fatherhood, 
brotherhood, childhood, which is not capable of 
expressing divine relations. Man is a child of 
God, for whom his Father’s house is waiting. 

The whole creation is groaning and travailing till 
man shall *be complete. Christ comes not to de- 
123 


[X-i] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

stroy but to fulfil. What is the spirit of such 
words as those? Is it not all a claiming of man 
through all his life for God? Is it not an asser¬ 
tion that just so far as he is not God’s he is not 
truly man? Is it not a declaration that whatever 
he does in his true human nature, undistorted, 
unperverted, is divinely done, and therefore that 
the divine perfection of his life will be in the 
direction which these efforts of his nature indi¬ 
cate and prophesy?” 

—“The Light of the World,” p. 7. 

Does it seem a useless question to ask whether this is 
God’s world where evil is the intruder, or whether it is 
a world belonging to evil where God is trying to find a 
place? It is a fundamental question. Brooks does not 
hesitate to call it “the first truth of all religion” when 
he affirms that man belongs to God and not to the Devil. 
“Man is a son of God on whom the Devil has laid his hand, 
not a child of the Devil whom God is trying to steal.” 

Our whole conception of the world depends upon this 
truth. It is impossible to justify the unity and brother¬ 
hood of humanity unless we are able to construe it in 
the terms of this essential relationship to God. There is 
no hope for the final victory of good over evil unless we 
can be sure that God is on the side of the good, bringing 
it through its inevitable conflict into ultimate triumph. 

There is evidence for the unity of man from the findings 
of ethnology. Anthropology has its word to speak on 
the matter. But the full proof of the common nature and 
destiny of the race is derived from religion rather than 
from science. Here are the yearning hearts and the 
thirsty spirits! Here is the witness of the homesickness 
of the human for the divine—'the nostalgia which the 
mystics recognize so clearly—binding all the sons of earth 
into a fellowship whose bonds go deeper than any other 
that we are aware of! If our faith in the solidarity of 

124 


THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-2] 

humanity is to become a working principle to guide us in 
daily living it must rest on firm foundations; it cannot do 
business in our rugged world if it has no other bulwark 
than a mere sentiment. 

Here is the firm foundation of our confidence in interna¬ 
tional unity and mutual aid: the world is God’s, the races 
of men are children of the common Father, and therefore 
they cannot finally live in isolation or discord. We can 
gather confidence from our religion as we strive to make 
good with the ideal of human brotherhood. 

Tenth Week, Second Day: What We Are Worth to 
God 

“Christ’s redemption of the world means, for 
each man who truly believes in it, just these three 
things: the revelation to the man of his own value, 
of the value of his fellow-man, and of the dearness 
and greatness of God. . . . The man who has 
despised his fellow-men and asked himself, ‘Why 
should I give up my pleasure for their pleasure, or 
even for their good?’ sees in the redemption how 
God values these lives, and is not so much shamed 
out of his contempt for them as drawn freely for¬ 
ward into the precious privilege of honoring them 
and'working for them.” 

—“The Joy of Self-Sacrifice,” in “The Candle 
of the Lord,” p. 36. 

“What is he worth?” is supposed to be a characteristic 
American question. We have been told that this query 
reveals the very nature of America, the “dollar nation.” 
We are fast proving the falsehood of that charge. And 
the question, when it is not put in the mere interests of 
a financial rating, is one of the most necessary and search¬ 
ing that can be asked. What is the world worth to God? 
The answer to that gives us the truest view of the world 
that we could possibly work out. 

125 


[X-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The Christian religion says that the world is worth so 
much to God that he loves it and that he has done the 
utmost within the range of his power to save it from ruin. 
For the whole truth of the redemption through Christ 
would be entirely without meaning if humanity were 
worth no more than the swarms of insects that are born 
and perish in a day in the summer time. It is impossible 
to think of love as resting permanently upon an unworthy 
object. A man crippled by sin may seem to be an un¬ 
worthy object, and his fellowmen are inclined to regard 
him so; but God sees how much he is worth in spite of the 
ruin in which he is involved and loves him even at his 
worst. 

How often we have said, “I hate myself for that act.” 
And we were honest in our judgment. What we need at 
such a moment is a new conception of how God looks at 
us. He, too, hates the wrong and folly that we have com¬ 
mitted ; but he knows the divine worth of our soul and he 
loves us even in our moods when we despise ourselves. 

If we can be sure of this fact, namely, that God thinks 
us and all our fellowmen to be worth loving and expend¬ 
ing supreme effort for even in the midst of sin, we have a 
philosophy of life which will stand by us in all the hard 
days that are sure to come to us. Our comrades will dis¬ 
appoint us; we shall disappoint ourselves; but we may 
fall back with certainty upon the conviction that there is 
something better in us all than is revealed in the sin, that 
God loves us with unfailing devotion and is working to 
bring us back to the better self which for the time we have 
lost. Then we grow hopeful and brave. 

Tenth Week, Third Day: What I Must Give the 
World 

“I think that all of us come to feel very 
strongly, as we grow older, that what we get from 
126 


THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-3] 

fellow-men in all these close and pressing con¬ 
tacts into which life brings us with one another 
depends not nearly so much upon what the men 
are whom we touch, as upon what sort of men we 
are who touch them; and so, as we grow older, 
we ought to grow more careless about where we 
live, just in proportion as we become careful 
about what we are. ... I think there grows in 
us a strong conviction with our growing years 
that for a man to get bad out of the world of fel¬ 
low-men is not necessarily a disgrace to the world 
of fellow-men, but is certainly a disgrace to him.” 

—“The Gift and Its Return,” in “Sermons 
Preached in English Churches,” p. 272. 

We never doubt the fact that we make or mar one an¬ 
other in the daily contacts which compose practical life. 
It would be profitable to extend our ideas of the number 
of persons whom we really touch in any hour of average, 
busy living. The number is far greater than simply the 
living persons of whom we are physically conscious. We 
sit at the table with a group; but think of the number of 
people who have worked to make the meal possible! The 
invisible company is a thousand times larger than the 
number that we see with our physical eyes. And in some 
way each one of them has entered into the preparation of 
the meal and sits there invisibly with us. Their honesty 
or dishonesty appears in countless ways. Truly, we can¬ 
not eat a simple dinner without putting the world under 
tribute and resting upon the honor and service of humanity. 

So we are made better or worse, happier or more miser¬ 
able by the personal relations that we maintain with the 
great world at every waking moment. Bishop Brooks 
notes the fact that we are more likely to think of what 
we are to gain out of these relationships than what we 
are to give to them. We are inclined to lay the blame of 
our failures upon the influence of our surroundings. But 

127 


[X-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

we ought to be the kind of person who will give good to 
his surroundings and gain good from them. The fact that 
the situation in which we found ourselves damaged us, is, 
of course, due to the evil in the circumstances; but, Bishop 
Brooks says truly, it is also due to the way in which we 
ourselves behaved. Therefore the criticism is upon us 
quite as much as upon the situation. The world cannot 
damage us if we are living in the right spirit. It did no 
harm to Jesus. “The prince of the world cometh and he 
hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). 


Tenth Week, Fourth Day : The Glory of Renunciation 

“There will come to every manly man times in 
his life when he will see that there is something 
which is legitimately his, something which he has 
a right to, something which nobody can blame him 
if he takes and enjoys to the fullest, and yet some¬ 
thing by whose voluntary and uncompelled sur¬ 
render he can help his fellow-man and aid the 
work of Christ, and make the world better. Then 
will come that man’s trial. If he fails, and cannot 
make the sacrifice, nobody will blame him; he will 
simply sink into the great multitude of honorable, 
respectable, self-indulgent people who take the 
comfortable things which everybody owns that 
they are entitled to, and live their easy life with¬ 
out a question. But if he is of better stuff, and 
makes the renunciation of comfort for a higher 
, work, then he goes up and stands—humbly, but 
really—with Jesus Christ. He enters into that 
other range, that other sort of life, where Jesus 
Christ lived.” 

—“The Willing Surrender,” in “Sermons 
Preached in English Churches,” p. 240. 

The important question is not what we get out of life 
but what life gets out of us. It is easy to live comfortably, 
insisting that we shall enjoy what we have earned and 

128 






THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-5] 

maintaining the respect of our fellowmen by an honorable 
life. This is to fill a large place in the respectable rela¬ 
tions of average life. Is there nothing higher and diviner 
than this for us? 

Bishop Brooks makes it clear that there is an available 
glory of which we may lay hold in the act of renunciation 
for the sake of the highest good of others. These oppor¬ 
tunities come every day. They come to the humblest 
people and in the most quiet ways. We always think of 
renunciation as concerned with some great action or con¬ 
spicuous man. But the opportunities come in the round of 
family life, in the daily tasks of a student, in the common 
work of the factory. No hour passes that does not bring 
some privilege like this. 

And with this opportunity to yield for the enjoyment 
and profit of others a privilege which we have the strict 
right to enjoy alone comes the great glory of living. 
Bishop Brooks is perfectly right when he says that a man 
steps up alongside Jesus Christ when he surrenders his 
own comfort or convenience for the welfare of others. 
Up there in those higher ranges of life all petty selfish¬ 
ness disappears and the wide and beautiful relations of 
unselfish men and women appear. No one who has visited 
that world can want to come back and live in the lower 
one. A rich man at the front wrote home while the war 
was going on, “I do not know what I shall do when I 
come back, certainly something different from living at the 
Club, for I have found the joy of working for a great 
cause.” Humanity is the great cause, because God loves it. 

Tenth Week, Fifth Day: Ideals Justified by Life 

“There is no study or dream, no meditation or 
prayer, which must not hold itself subject to the 
demand of men. It is not simply that the dream 
or study is less important, and must sacrifice 
129 


[X-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

itself when the human need requires; it is more 
than that. It is that the study and the dream 
need for their rectification and fulfilment this 
readiness to report themselves to man and his 
nature. They must justify and know themselves 
before the face of human life looking to them out 
of its anxieties and hopes.” 

—“Individual and Collective Humanity,” in 
“Seeking Life,” p. 129. 

The peril for our ideals is that we may simply enjoy 
their beauty and allurement and do nothing with them 
in the rugged stress of daily living. There is a fatal 
habit of mind into which it is easy to fall where we are 
forever picturing that which we would like to see, while 
we make no serious effort to bring the vision to pass in 
concrete deeds. 

Bishop Brooks was constantly telling young men that 
they must make their visions and their tasks walk hand in 
hand. By every power of his brilliant mind and persuad¬ 
ing personality he drove this truth home to his hearers. 
We do not need to lay emphasis upon this point. It is self- 
evident. 

But what is the standard by which our ideals are to be 
justified? Is it simply the immediate personal duty; or 
is it the vaster fact of humanity as a whole? Certainly 
it is the latter. The greatest ideals never can be satisfied 
until they involve our total humanity. Take, for example, 
the simplest act. You decide that you will make a sale to 
a customer who is exacting. Now is the completion of 
that transaction all that is involved in the action? Does 
it stop at yourself or yourself and your customer? No. 
If you do your work well, in the spirit of an ideal worker, 
you and your customer are made better partners in the 
common tasks of life forever. You have added an incre¬ 
ment of discipline to your mind in your work, you have 
mastered yourself in a difficult situation, so that you are 

130 


THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-6] 

better prepared to serve humanity forever. This is not 
a refinement of subtle reasoning; it is a hard fact, as real 
and as useful as the multiplication table. 

We involve the whole world in the details of daily living. 
Humanity as a whole is caught in the mesh of our com¬ 
mon tasks. Nothing less than these universal relations 
gives meaning and value to the slight details of our indi¬ 
vidual duties. Our ideals live only in the realm of our 
total world. 

Tenth Week, Sixth Day: Being My Best for the 
Common Good 

“When society shall be complete, it shall per¬ 
fectly develop the freedom of the individual. 
When the individual shall be perfect, he will make 
in his free and original life his appointed contri¬ 
bution to society. 

Therefore . . . it is not by elaborate plans for 
the building of the social structure; nor, on the 
other hand, by frantic assertions of personal in¬ 
dependence ; but by patiently and unselfishly being 
his own best self for the great good of all, that 
every man best helps the dawning of the Golden 
Age. Many a patient and unselfish worker is mak¬ 
ing valuable contribution to the great end who 
never dreams of what he is doing.” 

—“Individual and Collective Humanity,” in 
“Seeking Life,” p. 138. 

All the great principles by which we live are made up 
of apparent contradictories. The centrifugal and the 
centripetal forces must balance in order to give us stable 
footing on the earth. The power of God and the freedom 
of man must both be expressed in a consistent and con¬ 
quering life. The demand of the commonwealth and the 
freedom of the individual must be blended in a true theory 
of human welfare. 

131 



[X-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Of course we are justified in our struggle to perfect our 
own personality. If this were taken away from our in¬ 
centives we could not live with eagerness or profit. It is 
our duty to make the most of our personal powers. God 
put talents into our hands in order that we might use 
them for the good of all and for his own glory. Every 
healthy ambition begins with the desire to perfect the self. 
It is futile to talk about self-sacrifice unless we can speak 
confidently about the self that is to be sacrificed. 

But the peril in seeking to develop one’s self is that 
personal independence will be so asserted that the just 
claims of others will be trampled or forgotten. The 
individualist becomes a menace to the welfare of others 
when he seeks his own advantage without regard for the 
just rights of his fellows. That is what Germany has 
done among the nations; that is what the boaster and the 
egoist does in society everywhere. 

The corrective is the international consciousness. When 
we are aware of the rights of others to which our own 
must be adjusted we are on the way to the true theory of 
life. It is all summed up in the simple proposition, I 
must be my best for the common good. 

The man who works at the problem of self-development 
in this way is unobtrusive. He never will shout or call 
attention to the contribution that he is making to the good 
of the whole. But all men everywhere share the blessing 
of his consecrated life. 

Tenth Week, Seventh Day: Truth for the Whole of 
Life 

“Preaching the gospel to the heathen is not 
standing upon the beach of a dark continent and 
crying into the darkness the story of the Lord. 

It is nothing less, nothing easier, than laying upon 
all the heathen nature, upon body and soul and 
132 


THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-7] 

mind and conscience and ordinary habits, all to¬ 
gether, the truth of the redeemed world as it has 
been laid upon all our nature in all our Chris¬ 
tian culture. . . . Philanthropy and education 
have come in these modern times to take a very 
prominent place in missionary operations, not be¬ 
cause they were needed in addition to religion, 
but because they were a part of the complete reli¬ 
gion, because the full truth of Christ must reach 
the whole nature of man through the whole nature 
of man, or the true Gospel was not preached.” 

—‘The Earth of the Redemption,” in “Visions 
and Tasks,” p. 184. 

The nearest practical program that we have had for the 
realization of the ideal of the kingdom of God has been 
the Christian missionary enterprise. Perhaps out of the 
tremendous mobilization of nations for the purposes of 
military efficiency we may catch the vaster vision of the 
mobilization of the forces of the community for the highest 
welfare of all the people. If that were to be an issue of 
the Great War, it would be great gain for humanity. 

The enterprise of Christian missions has extended its 
ideal greatly since the beginning of the efforts to carry 
the Gospel to the ends of the earth. It is no longer con¬ 
ceived as giving a message to non-Christian races, or seek¬ 
ing to displace one religion by another. It is the effort to 
bring the universal claim of the kingdom of God to the 
universal needs of the world. The Christian missionary 
ideal is not satisfied when a number of heathen have been 
converted and baptized. Nothing less than the trans¬ 
formation of the whole life of the nation is sought by the 
missionary movement. 

This is a wonderful expansion in the ideal with which 
missions began. But the most important factor in this 
ideal is the reflex influence upon the Christian nations 
themselves. They know the message; but they have not 

133 


[X-c] 


ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 


, 


yet made good with it themselves. How can they expect 
to carry it to others until they realize it more completely 
at home! 

There are two notes in Christian testimony in China, 
for example. One is the message of the missionary 
preacher, who tells the Chinese what the Christian Gospel 
is. The other is the testimony of the thousands of Chinese 
who have returned to China from America and who tell 
their countrymen what they have seen in America as a 
Christian civilization. And there is too great a disparity 
between the two lines of testimony. How shall we cor¬ 
rect this? By making our Christianity at home dominant 
in the whole life of the nation. Then we have the mis¬ 
sionary testimony to reenforce the gospel message. 


; 


Comment for the Week 




There is probably no single passage in the New Testa¬ 
ment which gathers up the truth which Phillips Brooks so 
constantly emphasized better than the words of Jesus, 
“And for their sakes I consecrate myself” (John 17:19, 
margin). Repeatedly the great preacher unfolded the 


meaning of this sentence, because it represents so per¬ 




fectly the thought that there is no such thing as indi¬ 
vidual perfection apart from the widest possible relations 
with men; and, on the other hand, there is no final salva¬ 
tion for humanity as a whole except through the service 
of persons who are repeating in their inmost motives the 
purposes of Jesus. 

Begin with either term of the proposition and the other 
is inevitably involved. For example, here is a young 
man or woman who wants to develop personal power in a 
well-balanced character. How is the problem to be worked 
out? It might seem the best plan to begin with a certain 
set of virtues and cultivate them one at a time until at last 


134 






THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-c] 

the sum of them all should make up a character that God 
can approve. But a little experiment with that sort of a 
plan shows that it is impossible. In the first place, it is so 
mechanical that it never can produce character. We do 
not become good or strong by putting on detailed virtues 
in this way. Then, in the second place, there are too many 
of them to be cultivated. It would take more than the 
span of mortal life to develop character that way. The 
whole process is too selfish and individualistic. We dis¬ 
cover at once that we cannot become what we desire to 
be except through the constant aid and inspiration of 
others. It is in “the stream of the world” that character is 
created, as Goethe said. And so there is no hope of attain¬ 
ing moral and spiritual excellence alone. We must have 
others. All character is socially constructed. Hence we 
pass from the individual to the group inevitably. 

But now suppose that we begin at the other term. We 
want to do something for the community life. We have 
caught the vision of service and we are ready to give 
the best we possess for the common good. We turn to 
a social settlement or a city philanthropic agency or to the 
Church as the avenue through which we are to render the 
service. Then we look for the one greatest force that we 
can exert to do what we desire for the community. And 
suddenly we discover that there is no method or system 
by which we can save the group or the community to its 
highest life. All the clever devices of investigation and 
research are futile to do what must be accomplished if the 
ideal for the group is to be reached. The worker with the 
soul aflame for the welfare of his group learns soon that 
the great means for achieving this end is his own char¬ 
acter. He himself, the good man, is the means through 
which the group is moved toward higher ideals. So his 
first task is to be good himself. He must consecrate and 
perfect his own soul in order that he may be able finally 

135 


[X-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

to lift the community. As at first he started with indi¬ 
vidual development and was driven to social service, so 
now, starting with social service, he is driven to individual 
development. There is no escape from the two laws. They 
work together. One complements the other. 

And as a matter of practical experience, we work under 
both at the same time. It is not necessary to have com¬ 
pleted the process of self-realization before we begin 
to work at the community task; it is not necessary to delay 
entering into the waiting social task until we have com¬ 
pleted the structure of character. Begin with one or the 
other; carry the two processes along together; each will 
help the other. We become better in order that we may 
help more; in helping more we grow better. This is one of 
those blessed laws that unite in mutual reenforcement. 

Now carry this identical principle over into the relation 
of a nation to other nations. As an individual character 
cannot be built up alone, so a nation cannot grow strong 
and become permanently successful alone. It is the boast 
of certain states of our Union that if a wall were built 
around them they would not suffer, since they can furnish 
from their own ground all the products that are necessary 
to sustain the life of the people in the state. But a little 
reflection will show how futile such a boast really is. Such 
a.walled-in state would become intolerable soon, merely 
from the fact that the inhabitants would have to endure 
each other all the time. But practically it is necessary to 
have the commerce and the inspiration of other nations in 
order that any individual nation may prosper. 

Of course a nation should seek to be strong and to 
develop all its resources and powers to the highest degree. 
But for what purpose? Merely to grow rich and strong? 
Or to make its essential contribution to the welfare of the 
world? Certainly it is the latter purpose which should 
guide all national development. We can see the terrible 

136 


THE CHRISTIAN PREACHER [X-c] 

results which are bred from the pernicious idea that the 
nation or the state has no moral responsibility. The wel¬ 
fare of others depends upon it and it cannot avoid the re¬ 
sponsibility. A nation is to be strong for the world’s sake, 
as an individual is to be strong for the community’s sake. 

Begin at the other term of the great proposition and ask 
in what way the United States, for example, can best help 
the world to become better. There is no panacea for the 
ills of humanity that can be worked by any school of 
philanthropists or reformers. The only way in which 
the United States can serve the nations of the world is by 
becoming the just and righteous and philanthropic nation 
that she ought to be to please God. There is such a thing 
as national character, as there is individual character. 
This is something more than the sum of all the good people 
or all the bad people in the nation. It is a mysterious but 
most real force, the character of a nation. 

And the United States must become a righteous nation, 
in order that she may help bring in the reign of right¬ 
eousness throughout the whole world. We do not want to 
talk about the will to power as something desirable, in 
order that we may impose our demands upon a conquered 
world. We want to talk about our will to goodness and 
truth, in order that we may help the nations of the earth to 
attain truth and righteousness. 

The true international ideal carries the principle that 
guided Jesus in his development of his personality over 
into the vast and often bewildering relations of world 
states. It insists that nations do have obligations. It 
defines the great obligation in the terms of international 
service and calls every nation to struggle toward the 
achievement of its highest spiritual ideal, in order that it 
may be the most efficient agent in realizing the highest 
welfare of all the nations. 

Can a single individual count in a program so vast as 
137 


[X-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

this ? How much is the whole vast design better or worse 
off on account of my tiny spark of being? Such questions 
must arise. The reef would be incomplete if a single coral 
failed to toil. The sky would miss its consummate glory 
if a single star were quenched. Every citizen is vital to 
the fulfilment of the vast design. Each one counts. No 
one can be spared. Just because the ideal is so vast it needs 
the individual all the more. For the sake of the nations 
of earth you and I must be the best possible persons that 
God can help us to become. 


138 


CHAPTER XI 


THE PHILOSOPHER’S INTERPRETATION 

We look to the philosopher for the final interpretation 
of life. He seeks to gather the sum of human wisdom and 
reduce it to coherence. What the Christian philosopher 
has to say on the international aspects of Christianity may 
be anticipated as the full word for which we wait. 
Professor Josiah Royce of Harvard was not only one of 
the great philosophers of America, but he also thought 
and wrote extensively on the profoundest aspects of the 
Christian religion. The quotations in this chapter are 
taken from a book published shortly before his death, en¬ 
titled, “The Hope of the Great Community.” The very 
title is a challenge to interest and thoughtfulness. It is 
not merely the description of another Utopia; we have had 
no end of these. It is full of sane and practical sugges¬ 
tions. The Great Community becomes something more 
than a hope after studying this little book. 

Daily Readings 

Eleventh Week, First Day: A Fundamental Conflict 

“The present war is a conflict more conscious, 
more explicit, and for that very reason more 
dangerous than any we have ever had before, 
a conflict between the community of mankind and 
the particular interests of individual nations.” 

—“The Hope of the Great Community,” p. 31. 

Prof. Royce puts the issue involved in the Great War 
with clearness and convincing energy, as a battle to the 
death between two contradictory ideals. The United States 

139 


[XI-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

went to war not only with the Imperial German Govern¬ 
ment, but with a state of mind. Two ideas joined in 
conflict and the world will not be a good place in which 
honest human beings must live until the right idea has 
conquered. 

On the one hand is a form of individualism maintained 
by a nation with such malevolence of purpose and such 
massed physical force as makes this truly the greatest of 
all the wars of history in the importance of the issues 
involved. In utter disregard of the rights of other nations, 
the Germans asserted their individual assumptions of 
superiority. Against them were arrayed the free nations 
of the earth, united in defending the community of man¬ 
kind. 

This purpose was put in one of the most tremendous 
sentences ever written when President Wilson said: 


■ 


Eleventh Week, Second Day : The Gift of Science and 
the Humanities 


“In brief, the last two centuries have given us a 
right to hope for the unity of mankind, a right of 
which we had only mythical glimpses and mystical 
140 


“The object of this war is to deliver the free peoples 
of the world from the menace and the actual power of a 
vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible 
government, which, having secretly planned to dominate 
the world, proceeded to carry the plan out without regard 
either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long- 
established practices and the long-cherished principles of 
international action and honor; which chose its own time 
for the war; delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly; 
stopped at no barrier, either of law. or of mercy; swept a 
whole continent within the tide of blood—not the blood of 
soldiers only but the blood of innocent women and children 
also, and of the helpless poor—and now stands balked but 
not defeated, the enemy of four-fifths of the world.” 



PHILOSOPHER’S INTERPRETATION [XI-2] 

visions before. This right we gained through the 
recent development both of our natural science 
and of our modern humanities. The idea of the 
human community has tended of late to win a 
certain clearness which it never could possess 
until now.” 

—“The Hope of the Great Community,” p. 39. 

At first glance it might seem as if the tendency of 
scientific research and the method of the specialist would 
result in strengthening the individual temper and point of 
view. But the contrary has been true. The result of 
scientific research has been the discovery of the fact of the 
unity of mankind and many of the laws underlying it. 
Not only does the spectroscope show us a world made 
up from the same elements; but the discoveries of an¬ 
thropology show us beyond the shadow of doubt that the 
fundamental facts regarding human life attest the essen¬ 
tial unity of all mankind. Human mothers love their chil¬ 
dren in the same way; strong men feel about the same 
in the presence of the elementary forces of the universe. 
This proves that we are all one at basis. 

The “humanities” are concerned with the researches into 
the meaning of the human spirit. And the result of the 
deepest search of the soul is the revelation of the com¬ 
mon qualities that make our humanity one in essential 
character. Cultivation and environment have done much 
to alter the behavior of people of different races and civil¬ 
izations; but this is really only a superficial modification. 
At basis they are one, and must be so understood by any¬ 
one who is to deal directly with the human spirit in all 
its variety and power of expression. 

Thus modern scholarship is a source of revelation to all 
who are eager to know what life means. These are days 
when the light of science lies on the path of men, revealing 
the true meaning of the world. 

141 


[XI-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Eleventh Week, Third Day: “Una Persona, Nulla 
Persona” 

“The detached individual is an essentially lost 
being. . . . The citizens of the world of the 

future will not lose their distinct countries. What 
will pass away will be that insistent mutual hos¬ 
tility which gives to the nations of today, even 
in times of peace, so many of the hateful and dis¬ 
tracting characters of a detached individual man.” 

—-“The Hope of the Great Community,” pp. 

46, 5 i- 

The truth of the Latin proverb, “Una persona , nulla 
persona” does not require debate. The least amount of 
reflection will establish the proposition contained in the 
four words. We must have human help from the first 
moment of our existence if we are to exist at all physi¬ 
cally; and that which is true of our bodies is still more 
true in respect to our minds. We must have one another 
if we are to think straight, to love truly, and to choose 
that which is highest and most desirable in life. 

But does the same law obtain in the case of the nation? 
We are assured sometimes that it does not. While it is 
apparent that an individual cannot exist in isolation from 
his fellows, there is no such law to govern the nation or 
the state. 

And this is the very falsehood which brought about 
the greatest conflict in the history of the world. The 
same law obtains between races that rules among individ¬ 
uals to make them mutually dependent. The nation that 
casts aside its moral relations with others not merely 
becomes an outlaw, but it ceases to have at its disposal the 
means whereby it can become truly a nation, namely, the 
help of other free nations in the development of its own 
life and service. 

Therefore the safety of a nation consists in the number 

142 



PHILOSOPHER’S INTERPRETATION [XI-4] 

of fellow-nations by which it can surround itself, to each 
of which it gives something and from each of which it 
derives something for its highest efficiency. To defy this 
law is to fail in attaining the highest good for a nation or 
for an individual. 


Eleventh Week, Fourth Day: The Permanence of 
Patriotism 

“Therefore, while the great community of the 
future will unquestionably be international by vir¬ 
tue of the ties which will bind its various nation¬ 
alities together, it will find no place for that inter¬ 
nationalism which despises the individual variety 
of nations, and which tries to substitute for the 
vices of those who at present seek merely to con¬ 
quer mankind, the equally worthless desire of 
those who hope to see us in future as ‘men with¬ 
out a country/ ” > 

—“The Hope of the Great Community,” p. 50. 

Often the fear has been expressed that the rising of an 
international consciousness would render impossible or 
unnecessary the forms of patriotism which humanity al¬ 
ways has considered essential to its highest life. Need this 
be so? 

The fact that we are loyal to our own family is per¬ 
fectly consistent with our loyalty to the nation. In fact, 
there could be no deep and beneficent national loyalty that 
did not presuppose and preserve the utmost loyalty to the 
family. And it is loyalty to the state that truly fills out 
one’s loyalty to the family. 

Now that which is true in the relation to the family 
and the nation is also true in reference to the nation and 
the nation of nations, of which it is a part and which it 
requires in order to perfect its own being and perform 
its mission among the states of the world. 

143 


[XI-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Internationalism, therefore, calls for the renewal and 
the perfection of patriotism. Instead of destroying love 
of country it only perfects and ennobles it. The true 
internationalist is the true patriot and the true patriot 
must be finally the true internationalist. 

The man who would burn the flag of his own country in 
order that he might fly the flag of all the countries is 
making the most terrible blunder possible. He has lost 
the very power that gives reality to his universal flag, 
that is, the validity of those individual factors of which 
the larger whole is made up. To be a member of a family 
does not involve the surrender of individuality but rather 
its realization and exaltation. To be an internationalist 
involves being a patriot. 

Eleventh Week, Fifth Day: The Social Meaning of 
the Cross 

“But however ill-comprehended, the ‘sign’ in 
which and by which Christianity conquered the 
world was the sign of an ideal community of all 
the faithful, which was to become the community 
of all mankind, and which was to become some 
day the possessor of all the earth, the exponent of 
true charity, at once the spirit and the ruler of 
the humanity of the future/’ 

—“The Hope of the Great Community,” pp. 

36 - 37 . 

The words “In hoc signo vinces” have thrilled many a 
heart since they were blazoned on the banners of the con¬ 
quering Christians in the fourth century. But the Chris¬ 
tian people themselves have been slow in discovering the 
universal meaning of the symbol. To be sure Jesus is 
reported to have said: “And I, if I he lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto myself” (John 12:32). 
But the full meaning of the words “all men” has been lost 

144 


PHILOSOPHER’S INTERPRETATION [XI-6] 

in the dust of controversies over the range of the atone¬ 
ment. The last half-century has witnessed the dawn of a 
great light on this matter also. We are learning slowly 
that there is no greater splendor in all the beauties of the 
Cross than its international significance. Thus it becomes 
the sign of the “ideal community” which shall emerge in 
the sphere of an inner loyalty to Christ. 

But the Cross is also the pledge of the coming of that 
great day when the men of the earth shall find their union 
in the Christ who took this instrument of shame and made 
it the symbol of supreme and conquering love. So long 
as the Cross remains in the thought of humanity, so long 
the assurance abides that the reign of universal good will 
shall sometime come to pass. 

Eleventh Week, Sixth Day: Loyalty to the Highest 

“Loyalty, the devotion of the self to the inter¬ 
ests of the community, is indeed the form which 
the highest life of humanity must take, whether 
in a political unity, such as in a nation, or in the 
church universal, such as Paul foresaw.” 

—“The Hope of the Great Community,” p. 45. 

When we seek for a single term that will gather up 
and interpret the essential meaning of the international 
organization of the world and our relation to it there is 
no word that will better express it than the one chosen 
by Professor Royce, “Loyalty.” Whether it be to one’s 
self, to the family, the state, or the great community, the 
fine test of any individual is his loyalty to the best in 
each realm. 

The test of loyalty has been made in every age and 
applied to all spheres of life. The danger is, however, 
that we shall narrow the range of it and confine it to a 
party or a person. The martyrs have died for their faith; 
but the number of those who have lived for their faith is 

145 


[XI-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

far greater. The finest loyalty is affirmed by a steady and 
patient life rather than by a swift and tragic death. What 
we need in this generation is the unyielding steadfastness 
of devotion to great constructive principles of life which 
will make us the champions of truth and justice at any 
cost. This may involve greater sacrifices than the giving 
up of life in battle or standing before a hostile court. 
But it is the greater test of loyalty. 

Then we need to carry our loyalty into the largest rela¬ 
tions of life. It is relatively easy to be faithful to the com¬ 
rade or the commander whom we can see; it is far more- 
difficult to give our loyal service to the cause that is so vast 
that it is international in scope or to be true to the com¬ 
rade who is unknown by name. But here again we must 
rise to the level of such an allegiance. The unseen broth¬ 
erhood is as real as the president of the corporation who 
sits in the next office. It takes vision and patience to 
enter into this relationship of fealty. 

Eleventh Week, Seventh Day : Forms to Express the 
Great Faith 

“I believe that the future will invent, and will 
in due time begin very actively and productively 
to practice, forms of international activity which 
will be at once ideal in their significance and 
business-like in their methods, so that we shall no 
longer be dependent upon the extremely rare and 
precious beings called prophets or poets, to show 
us the way towards the united life of the great 
community.” 

—“The Hope of the Great Community,” p. 59. 

Every practical man knows that a great ideal must find 
adequate forms in which to express itself or it is of no 
real use to the world. As Bishop Brent says, “A body 
without a spirit is a corpse; a spirit without a body is a 

146 


PHILOSOPHER’S INTERPRETATION [XI-c] 

ghost.” The next thing to follow the gift of a great vision 
is the discovery of the forms in which the vision may be 
expressed in the terms of daily life. 

Therefore all our talk about international consciousness 
and the solidarity of the race is little more than empty 
words unless we can discover workable plans by which 
the ideal can be expressed. If we are to have the nations 
united, their union must take place in the shape of courts 
and activities that are large enough to embody the vast 
idea. To work out such institutions will command the 
service of the greatest minds of the world. To plan an 
institution that will express the social consciousness of a 
small village is not a superhuman task; but to organize 
the world for self-expression in common endeavor is the 
greatest demand that ever has been made upon the scholar 
and the statesman. 

But this problem will be solved. There are men who are 
competent even for this gigantic service. They will come 
forward as soon as the ideal is sufficiently defined and 
the vision that the prophets have seen will be worked out 
into institutions which will bless and save the world. 

Comment for the Week 

For of all living beings man is the most dependent upon 
the help of his fellows. The young deer is able to move 
about soon after birth, but the human infant must be 
cared for longer and more tenderly than any other crea¬ 
ture. The test of our civilization is made by the mortality 
scale of infants. John Fiske held that the most potent 
factor in the evolution of all our highest human powers 
was just this prolongation of infancy, bringing as it does 
all the more gracious factors of life into being. 

And therefore it is as impossible for an individual to 
escape his vital relation to the community of his kind as 

147 


[XI-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

it is for the plants to live without the sunlight. The man 
who seeks to save his individual life will finally lose it, 
while he who yields his individual demands and desires to 
the highest welfare of the community will find his life not 
only here but forever in the growing life with God. 

The practical issues of this principle are most impor¬ 
tant. Self-preservation is a primitive instinct. The man 
who ran away from his community to escape war service 
was seeking to save his own physical life. But he was 
losing his highest life at the moment. Every struggle for 
mere self-preservation at the cost of duty ends in the 
same way. Therefore the plain law for every one of us is 
to yield to the larger claims of the community. We shall 
find always that the first claim that the community makes 
upon us is that we become our best possible self for the 
common good. This was discussed at length in Chapter X. 
So there will be no final conflict between our individual 
and our social obligations. 

The second important principle to be considered at 
greater length is the emphasis that Professor Royce lays 
upon patriotism and its relation to international obligation. 
He says: 

“The community of mankind will be international in the 
sense that it will ignore no rational and genuinely self- 
conscious nation. It will find the way to respect the liberty 
of the individual nations without destroying their genuine 
spiritual freedom. Its liberty and union, when attained, 
will be ‘now and forever, one and inseparable.’ ” 1 

It is most necessary that we keep this principle clear in 
all our discussion of internationalism. For the true love 
of country must not be lost but rather found in the search 
for the greater love of mankind. Unless we can feel the 
thrill of soul that comes at the sight of our flag waving in 

1 “ The Hope of the Great Community,” p. 52. 






PHILOSOPHER’S INTERPRETATION [XI-c] 

the breeze, unless we can kindle with the true ardor of the 
patriot when we hear the name of our country, then we 
have lost an essential factor in our life. Perhaps it would 
be better to remain narrow and provincial in our patriotic 
loyalties than to lose them in the larger conception of the 
race and the World. 

But this need not be so. It is quite like the keeping of 
our own family name and ties when we enlarge our rela¬ 
tions to include those of the neighborhood in which we live. 
Because we are sensitive to the common interests of the 
larger group that makes up our neighborhood we are not 
supposed to give up our loyalty to our own family name. 
On the contrary, the very fact that we are neighbors with 
many names gives each individual name a greater signifi¬ 
cance. If every family in the ward took the name Smith 
in order to secure ward unity, it would be the silliest pro¬ 
ceeding that one could imagine. We keep our various 
names in order that the true unity of the ward or neigh¬ 
borhood may be preserved. 

Or take another illustration that is peculiarly clear to 
Americans. We are citizens of different states. And we 
keep the atmosphere and traditions of those states. It 
would be a distinct loss if these were to be surrendered in 
order to secure the unity of the United States. We are 
united just because we are different. Let the citizen from 
Vermont go to Louisiana and he becomes sensitive in a 
moment to differences which are far deeper than those of 
climate or surroundings. If he is a wise man he will 
neither obtrude nor surrender his New England temper. 
He will learn and sympathize and understand. The man 
from Louisiana will not ask him to cease to feel the tra¬ 
ditions of the Green Mountains. But he will ask him, and 
he will have the right to ask him, that he shall have a 
hospitable mind and a sympathetic spirit and shall think 
in terms of the whole country and of the far South while 

149 


[XI-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

he is also a son of New England. And the man who fuses 
in his ideals the different points of view of the whole 
country becomes thereby the best citizen. He will be 
tolerant and also clear in his thinking. 

Now that which is true of family loyalty in the relations 
of the neighborhood and of state loyalty in the relations of 
the nation is also true in reference to national loyalty in 
relation to international consciousness and obligation. The 
true cosmopolitan is the true patriot. He never surrenders 
his tradition and his temper; but he holds it in a teachable 
and sympathetic spirit. He knows that the nations could 
not achieve their highest unity without the one to which 
he belongs; and he knows that the nation to which he is 
loyal could not become truly great unless it were bound 
into the bundle of life with all the nations of the earth. 

The principle is perfectly clear. The practice is some¬ 
what more difficult. We all are born partisans. We fight 
for our particular heritage. Our training is generally in 
the line of the narrower rather than the broader loyalties. 
The school teaches the national history and tradition, as 
it ought to do. But there is a place for the international 
ideal also. This ought to be given recognition in the train¬ 
ing which we give for citizenship. We never live fully 
until we are citizens of the Great Community. 



CHAPTER XII 


THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF 
DIPLOMACY 

The following quotations have been taken from the 
addresses of Secretary John Hay, and have been chosen 
for this chapter on Christian Diplomacy both because of 
the value of the quotations and because of the illustrations 
which their author’s life affords of their practicality as 
rules of conduct. Such ideals can find no more formidable 
testing place than those intellectual arenas in which 
Secretary Hay won so many victories. Several of the 
quotations are made up of sayings which he himself used 
in these addresses, the words of men whom he admired 
supremely—Lincoln, Tolstoi, McKinley, and Franklin. 
Such sayings, quoted and requoted, are of the spiritual 
stuff, which, kindled under the spell of love and admira¬ 
tion, finally burst forth into a flaming ideal for the world 
and become known to all, made visible in noble deeds. So 
the life of Hay illumines his words and those friendships 
which were their source. 

Daily Readings 

Twelfth Week, First Day: The Monroe Doctrine and 
the Golden Rule 

“But if we are not permitted to boast of what 
we have done, we can at least say a word about 
what we have tried to do, and the principles which 
have guided our action. The briefest expression 
of our rule of conduct is, perhaps, the Monroe 
Doctrine and the Golden Rule. With this simple 
chart we can hardly go far wrong.” 

I5i 


[XII-i] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

—Speech in reply to the toast, “Our Recent 
Diplomacy/’ at New York Chamber of Com¬ 
merce Dinner, November 19, 1901. 

The Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule! The com¬ 
bination of the two has a strange sound in our ears. 
And yet the Golden Rule is as practical and vital as the 
Monroe Doctrine in the actual relationships of nations. 

The sincerity of America and of Mr. Hay himself in 
such a statement was tested when the Boxer trouble came 
to an end in China in 1900. It is impossible to enter here 
upon the details of John Hay’s great service at that time, 
but his part in protecting the Chinese Empire from dis¬ 
memberment was greater than that of any other statesman. 
Germany, Japan, Russia, England, all would have been 
pleased with a portion of the prostrate Empire. On 
September 6, 1899, Mr. Hay addressed to the leading na¬ 
tions his famous note on the open door, which requested 
each to respect the existing treaty ports, to allow the 
Chinese tariff to be collected as hitherto, and in the 
matter of port and railroad rates to treat other foreigners 
with impartiality. 

As Thayer says in his Life of Hay: “By what was one 
of the most adroit strokes of modern diplomacy, Hay 
thus accustomed the world to accept the Open Door as 
the only decent policy for it to adopt toward China. Not 
one of the Governments concerned wished to agree to it; 
each saw more profit to itself in exploiting what it had 
already secured and in joining in the scramble for more; 
but no one of them, after Hay had declared for the Open 
Door, dared openly to oppose the Doctrine. It was as if 
in a meeting, he had asked all those who believed in telling 
the truth to stand up; the liars would have kept their 
seats.” 1 

In some respects our conscience as citizens lags behind 

1 William Roscoe Thayer, “ The Life and Letters of John Hay.” 

152 





CHRISTIANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY [XII-2] 

our conscience as individuals. How seldom would we find 
a citizen who would esteem it right to rush into the home 
of a prostrate neighbor to divide the spoil! But the na¬ 
tions, looking on coldly upon helpless China’s struggles, 
indifferently asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 

Among nations as well as between individuals the same 
great rule holds true—“Do unto others as ye would that 
others should do unto you.” It was by this simple standard 
that Hay saved China from vivisection. 

Twelfth Week, Second Day: God, the Supreme Ar¬ 
bitrator 

“Perplexed and afflicted beyond the power of 
human help, by the disasters of war, the wran¬ 
gling of parties, and the inexorable and constrain¬ 
ing logic of his own mind, he [Lincoln] shut out 
the world one day, and tried to put into form his 
double sense of responsibility to human duty and 
Divine Power; and this was the result. It shows 
—as has been said in another place—the awful 
sincerity of a perfectly honest soul, trying to bring 
itself into closer communion with its Maker. 

‘The will of God prevails. In great contests 
each party claims to act in accordance with the 
will of God. Both may be and one must be wrong. 

God cannot be for and against the same thing at 
the same time. In the present civil war it is 
quite possible that God’s purpose is something 
different from the purpose of either party; and 
yet the human instrumentalities, working just as 
they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His 
purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is 
probably true; that God wills this contest, and 
wills that it shall not end yet.’ ” 

—“Lincoln’s Faith,” in “Addresses of John 
Hay,” pp. 239-240. 

In this time of stress we can appreciate to some extent 
the agony of questioning with which President Lincoln 

153 


[XII-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

reached this decision. It is difficult honestly to bring 
ourselves face to face with such problems, and still more 
difficult in the solitude of our own room to frame such 
ultimate truths. Man with freedom of decision, God with 
omnipotent power—how shall we reconcile the two? 

But Lincoln gave an answer. God has not left this 
world to reel blindly onward in the making of a history 
where chance and the caprices of ignorant humanity shall 
be the determining factors. The final decisions rest with 
him. Just as truly as the hairs of our head are numbered 
and not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowl¬ 
edge of our Father, so does he preside also over the des¬ 
tinies of nations. Sometimes he seems to us to linger, 
sometimes in the confusion of events we lose our way and 
can no longer trace his purpose, but the final great event 
is in his care and keeping. And so, however dark the hour, 
we need never despair, but wait in patience while we labor 
for what seems to us the right. 

Twelfth Week, Third Day: Man, the Laborer 

“The attitude of our diplomacy may be indicated 
in a text of Scripture which Franklin—the first 
and greatest of our diplomats—tells us passed 
through his mind when he was presented at the 
Court of Versailles. It was a text his father used 
to quote to him in the old candle shop in Boston, 
when he was a boy: ‘Seest thou a man diligent in 
his business, he shall stand before kings.’ Let us 
be diligent in our business and we shall stand— 
stand, you see, not crawl, nor swagger—stand, as 
a friend and equal, asking nothing, putting up 
with nothing but what is right and just, among 
our peers, in the great democracy of nations.’ ” 

—Speech in reply to the toast, “Our Recent 
Diplomacy,” at New York Chamber of Com¬ 
merce Dinner, November 19, 1901. 

If God is the supreme Arbitrator, it is no less true that 
154 


CHRISTIANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY [XII-4] 

man is the laborer, the instrument through whom his pur¬ 
poses are brought to pass. We must be equally faithful 
in our trust of God and diligent in our business. The 
Christianization of the world can never be accomplished 
simply by passive faith. The second great factor is dili¬ 
gence. 

The word diligence carries with it the very atmosphere 
of sanity and common sense. There is no need for the dili¬ 
gent either to crawl or to swagger. He has no time nor 
inclination for such subservience or pride. Such a man 
walks upright, face to the front, unafraid, with even 
poise of mind, keenly interested in all that takes place 
about him, but unshaken by it, with unhysterical genial 
kindliness, with a wisdom gained from experience, re¬ 
spected by all. The portrait is that of Benjamin Franklin 
himself. There is no reason why such a man should not 
stand before kings—he is their equal. 

In such manner ought a democracy to take its place 
among the nobility of the nations. And so it will take its 
place when all its parts, all individuals composing it, shall 
have attained to this ideal of the perfect whole—but not 
until then. So long as labor shirks and evades its re¬ 
sponsibilities, with eyes upon the clock when they should 
be upon the task, so long as capital dallies with the notion 
that its wealth has relieved it of all personal burden of toil, 
our nation will never be ready to take its place adequately 
among its peers. 

Twelfth Week, Fourth Day: The Perfection of the 
Whole Dependent upon the Individual Part 

“As you read, with an aching heart, his [Tol¬ 
stoi’s] terrible arraignment of war, feeling that as 
a man you are partly responsible for all human 
atrocities, you wait with impatience for the 
remedy he shall propose, and you find it is—Reli- * 

155 


[XII-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

gion. Yes, that is the remedy. If all would do 
right, nobody would do wrong—nothing is 
plainer.” 

—Address at Thirteenth International Congress 
of Peace, Boston, October 3, 1904. 


We find in this quotation one of the vital links con¬ 
necting individualism and nationalism in this task of 
Christianizing the world—“If all would do right, nobody 
would do wrong.” 

The individual was the great discovery of the Renais¬ 
sance. Henceforth it seemed that men were to be saved 
or lost as individual souls. But therein was revealed only 
one side of the truth. The state is not all; the individual 
is not all. Christianity never can find its perfect expres¬ 
sion upon earth, until the state is Christianized in all the 
individuals which compose it; the individual never can live 
at his best until the state of which he is a member is con¬ 
trolled by the spirit of Christianity. The great brother¬ 
hood of nations never can be perfected until each indi¬ 
vidual state has been thus Christianized. 

Thus each man becomes responsible for the perfection of 
the whole. Why should I do right? For the sake of my 
own salvation, for the sake of my family, of my friends, 
of my country? Yes, but also for the sake of the world! 
In this exalted motive we become united with the great 
purpose of God himself—“God so loved the world that 
he gave” (John 3:16). If for love of the world we, too, 
would each do right nobody would do wrong, and peace 
would come. There would be no more crime, no more of 
those terrible and loathsome experiences which only in 
the reading have daily filled our minds with anguish. 

It is the simplest and at the same time the most complex 
remedy in the world, because it depends upon such a multi¬ 
tude. A peace conference, an international court—how 
comparatively easy it would be to bring these about! And 



CHRISTIANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY [XII-5] 

very few of us would have anything to do personally with 
attaining this end. But this is our task, yours and mine— 
each to do right. 

Twelfth Week, Fifth Day: Christianity in Trade 
Relationships 

“Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy 
of good will and friendly trade relations will pre¬ 
vent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in har¬ 
mony with the spirit of the times; measures of 
retaliation are not.” 

—From a speech of William McKinley, quoted 
by John Hay in a memorial address by in¬ 
vitation of the Congress delivered in the 
Capitol at Washington, February 27, 1902. 

Many sincere and earnest people have deemed it neces¬ 
sary to keep their religion and their trade in two separate 
moral-tight compartments. Other questions of conduct 
might commingle with their religious ideals, but trade 
never. It has even been a partially tabooed subject in 
the pulpit. Other themes the preacher may treat with 
impunity, but he must handle with care those principles 
which he attempts to apply to the conduct of business. 

The churches of America have sent missionaries to 
foreign lands in the same ships which have carried the 
ofttimes corrupting influences of American business en¬ 
terprises. 

“While the missionary has been carrying to the Orient 
the words of life, our industrial civilization has been 
transporting the seeds of death. While the Gospel has 
been modifying the callousness of primitive people to 
human suffering, the exploitation of the weaker races by 
the white man has become a world scandal, as in the 
Congo rubber atrocities and the slavery of the cocoa 
plantations of West Africa.” 

The trade relationships of nations, both between the 
greater nations and the weaker and between those nations 

157 


[XII-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

which are peers, should be marked by the spirit of mutual 
helpfulness, not by a jealous or indifferent selfishness. 
Does this ideal seem an impracticable dream? Yet it is 
held up by such a diplomat as Hay and finds illustration 
in his life. 

When sent as ambassador to England his great task 
during his first year of residence there was the fostering 
of friendship between the two nations. Several great 
questions between the two were then awaiting settlement— 
the dispute over the Behring Sea fisheries, an international 
agreement on bimetallism, the Venezuela arbitration, and 
the high protection of the Dingley Tariff Bill. It was in 
the midst of problems such as these that Secretary Hay 
held to a policy of good will and friendliness in trade re¬ 
lations. 

Twelfth Week, Sixth Day: A Partnership in Benefi¬ 
cence 

“The reasons of a good understanding between 
us lie deeper than any considerations of mere ex¬ 
pediency. All of us who think cannot but see that 
there is a sanction like that of religion which 
binds us to a sort of partnership in the beneficent 
work of the world. Whether we will it or not, we 
are associated in that work by the very nature of 
things, and no man and no group of men can pre¬ 
vent it.” 

—Speech at Easter Banquet, Mansion House, 
London, April 21, 1898, in response to the 
Lord Mayor’s toast to the ambassadors and 
foreign ministers present on this occasion. 

The business relationships of the nations at one time 
tend to drive their peoples asunder and at other times to 
draw them into closer relationships. But those activities 
which are carried on wholly for the spiritual benefit of 
men, those works which uplift mankind into higher realms 

158 


CHRISTIANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY [XII-7] 

of art and beauty, at all times draw the people of the 
earth into closer harmony. 

“Works of art,” says Hay, “of invention, of faith, of 
literature, bind nations together whether they will or no, 
and these all have their source in religion. With or with¬ 
out men’s intention or planning the work of spiritual uni¬ 
fication goes onward.” 

How clearly this was illustrated in the Great War by 
the reluctance with which many finally came to believe any 
great evil of that nation which produced a Goethe and a 
Schiller, a Bach and a Beethoven! For years our students 
have crossed the waters to the universities of Germany 
in search of philosophical, medical, theological, and mu¬ 
sical training. Deed after deed of provocation was neces¬ 
sary before America was ready to turn against her teacher. 
Those ties would have held in spite of many wrongs. 
They had been formed and strengthened without any pro¬ 
motion by the junkers, without any intention of the state, 
and even now, in spite of its incomprehensible frightful¬ 
ness, they are not wholly lost for all future time. 

It is beyond our power to manufacture a genius, and 
when he has appeared, miraculous, God-given, it is equally 
beyond the power of even the most wicked wholly to de¬ 
stroy his influence. In like manner the results of a purely 
beneficent deed can never be altogether lost and these 
spiritual powers will forever be united in a partnership 
of beneficence throughout the earth. 

Twelfth Week, Seventh Day: People of Good Will 

“We shall still compete with each other and the 
rest of the world, but the competition will be in 
the arts and the works of civilization, and all the 
people of good will on the face of the earth will 
profit by it.” 

—Speech at an Independence Day Banquet, 

July 4, 1898. 


159 


[XII-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The final Christianization of the world will result in 
nations of good will. The very words “good will” are 
sanctified, and when we utter them we seem to hear the 
bells of Christmas and the echoes of the angels’ song, 
“Good will toward men.” 

It is not enough that the nations should deal justly with 
one another, that they should aid one another through the 
influences of art, of culture, and of philanthropy. The 
motive behind all these noble influences must be that of 
good will. “For their sakes,” said Jesus, “I sanctify 
myself,” and only a little later Paul, that tireless laborer 
and dauntless sufferer, wrote, “If I give my body to be 
burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing” (I 
Cor. 13:3). 

We must have a genuine desire that all people may live 
in prosperity and happiness, that they may live at their 
best—not the English and the French alone, not those 
people who are most like ourselves, but the Chinese and 
Negroes and the Esquimos, the people most unlike Ameri¬ 
cans. It is eighteen hundred years since Christ lived and 
died, and yet how far away Christian people have been in 
recent history from this ideal. Our desire for the well¬ 
being of others has been limited by our own national 
boundaries, or by our own ties of race. 

Even in our own cities this limitation of our good will 
exists; it is not wholly banished from our churches. How 
difficult it is to feel the same enthusiasm over the Arme¬ 
nian or the Persian who enters the house of worship in a 
factory town that we feel over the well-dressed neighbor 
who owns the pew beside our own. Are we just as anxious 
that he should feel at home and become a member of our 
fellowship ? 

Do we exercise the same thought over the new grammar 
school which is going up in the Polish district that we give 
to the grammar school of the rich people on the hill? 

160 




CHRISTIANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY [XII-c] 

And yet it is of supreme importance that these children of 
the poorest homes, whose knowledge of our American 
civilization, whose future judgment as voters, whose phys¬ 
ical development and health even, depend almost wholly 
on the school, should have the best that our taxpayers can 
afford. 

Our good will must embrace all races, all people. Then, 
and not till then, shall we be ready to join in the rest of 
the angels’ song of “peace on earth.” 

Comment for the Week 

The Church has long preached the Golden Rule, in¬ 
dustry, honesty, justice, philanthropy, and love—those 
Christian virtues which have been emphasized in the 
preceding quotations. But it has presented them for the 
most part as virtues for the individual, not for the nation. 
We have always inclined to a lurking suspicion that be¬ 
cause of its size, its complexity, a nation could never fol¬ 
low such altruistic, such other-worldly rules of conduct as 
those laid down in the New Testament. 

It is a great thing, therefore, when we find such a suc¬ 
cessful diplomat, such a man of the world as John Hay 
proclaiming these ideals as his laws of action. Not only 
that—he points out to us how those motives were held 
also by those great men whom he honored, Lincoln, Mc¬ 
Kinley, and Tolstoi. Can a statesman like Hay actually 
carry out the teachings of a dreamer like Tolstoi? Hay 
believed it possible. 

His ardent assistance of Lincoln in his early years, his 
defence of China, his attitude on the Philippine question, 
his very success in the cultivation of friendly relationships 
between the United States and those countries to which 
he went as ambassador, are all proofs that these principles 
were controlling motives in his conduct. 

161 




[XII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Nor do these motives find illustration in his public I 
achievements alone. Take for example that saying of 
Franklin’s concerning industry. Thayer, Hay’s biog- i 
rapher, tells us of Hay’s inability to be idle, even when he 
had returned to his Illinois home at the completion of his 
French ambassadorship, and had as yet accepted no other 
appointment. 

“If I stay at home,” he writes, “I cannot idle or read for 
amusement, without being haunted by the ceaseless re¬ 
proach of misspent time. But in the fields, tiresome and 
monotonous as the work may be—such as shoveling dirt or 
dropping corn—it frees me utterly from the sense of re- ; 
sponsibility for the passing hour. I am doing work, sub¬ 
stantial, real work, which would have its result doubtless 
some day, and so I plod on and watch the sun, glad after 
all when my day is done and I can ramble home through 
the magnificent hills and valleys that surround this town.” 2 

Was Hay a lover of other races, was he eager to benefit 
them, when he came into personal contact with them? 
On his journey home he writes in his diary, “Met on the 
cars a lame darkey in trouble, and paid his fare to Wash¬ 
ington.” 

Hay has been described over and over again as a cosmo¬ 
politan. He was, indeed. But it is not alone the ease 
with which he adapted himself to the court life of differ¬ 
ent countries which we admire. It was that cosmopolitan¬ 
ism in which he resembled the great-hearted Master of 
men. The final standard by which we may estimate the 
success of the Church’s efforts is the cosmopolitanism of 
the Christ. In his mind there were no class distinctions, 
no racial hatreds, no national rivalry. To him all were 
alike children of one Father, members of one family upon 
earth. 

This great duty of friendliness and good will has ever 

2 William Roscoe Thayer, “ The Life and Letters of John Hay.” 

162 




CHRISTIANIZATION OF DIPLOMACY [XII-c] 

been the message of the Gospel to the nations, but they 
have faltered, and turned instead to subtle diplomacy, and 
with suspicious watchfulness have dealt craftily with one 
another. The cosmopolitanism of Jesus has seemed too 
simple and too tremendous a thing to apply to our interna¬ 
tional politics. Only a few great men have believed in the 
practicality of its simplicity. But because they believed 
in it as an international possibility, we too may believe, 
and act accordingly in all our human relationships. 

John Hay’s faith is summed up in the following hymn, 
which expresses his thought of the will of God and the 
rights of man: 

“Not in dumb resignation 
We lift our hands on high; 

Not like the nerveless fatalist, 

Content to trust and die. 

Our faith springs like the eagle 
Who soars to meet the sun. 

And cries exulting unto Thee, 

‘O Lord, Thy Will be done/ 

When tyrant feet are trampling 
Upon the common weal, 

Thou dost not bid us bend and writhe 
Beneath the iron heel. 

In Thy name we assert our right 
By sword or tongue or pen, 

And even the headsman’s axe may flash 
Thy message unto men. 

Thy Will! It bids the weak be strong, 

It bids the strong be just; 

No lip to fawn, no hand to beg, 

No brow to seek the dust. 

Wherever man oppresses man 
Beneath Thy liberal sun, 

O Lord, be there Thine arm made bare. 

Thy righteous will be done.” 

163 


CHAPTER XIII 




THE SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN 
PEOPLE 

If one would discover the inmost thought and feeling 
of any race, let him study its songs. We sing better than 
we write or act. The earliest expression of the genius 
of a race is in its poems. The Church has put its visions 
and its love into its hymns more truly than it has been 
able to embody them in its formal creeds or its institu¬ 
tions. Whenever one grows weary of the wrangling dif¬ 
ferences of Christians it is a comfort to retreat to the 
hymns of the faith and find there the expression of love 
and aspiration freed from the conflict of warring sects. 

One needs only compare the hymnbooks that are most 
used today with those that were published even half a 
century ago, to see the way in which the vision of world 
service and the essential brotherhood of the race has been 
gradually finding expression in the songs of the Christian 
people. This study is devoted to a consideration of seven 
hymns selected from many, in order that the international 
aspects of Christianity may be seen more clearly. 

Daily Readings 

Thirteenth Week, First Day: Our Common Human- 

“Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round 

Of circling planets singing on their way, 

Guide of the nations from the night profound 
Into the glory of the perfect day, 

Rule in our hearts that we may ever be 
Guided and strengthened and upheld by Thee. 






SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-i] 

We are of Thee, the children of Thy love, 

The brothers of Thy well-beloved Son; 

Descend, O Holy Spirit, like a dove, 

Into our hearts, that we may be as one; 

As one with Thee, to whom we ever tend, 

As one with Him, our Brother and our Friend. 

We would be one in hatred of all wrong, 

One in our love of all things sweet and fair, 

One with the joy that breaketh into song, 

One with the grief that trembles into prayer, 

One in the power that makes Thy children free 

To follow truth, and thus to follow Thee. 

O clothe us with Thy heavenly armor, Lord, 

Thy trusty shield, Thy sword of love Divine; 

Our inspiration be Thy constant word; 

We ask no victories that are not Thine. 

Give or withhold, let pain or pleasure be; 

Enough to know that we are serving Thee.” 

—John W. Chadwick, 1864. 

This noble hymn expresses the fundamental unity of 
mankind and the international aspects of the Christian 
religion. Of course, a hymn must not be didactic or theo¬ 
logical ; but great convictions lie behind all true hymns. 
So it is here. 

How true it is that we must be one “in hatred of all 
wrong” ! One of the men who has written concerning the 
war with rare skill is Coningsby Dawson. He says that 
while he was in the trenches he felt toward the foe only 
the sentiment of a contestant in point of strength. When 
he was sent to the border and saw what the Germans had 
done to their captives, as the poor victims came back 
repatriated when they could no longer serve the aims of 
greed and lust, he began to feel the moving of an intense 
hatred. He understood what it was to hate wrong. 

Recall that wonderful phrase in Isa. 63: 5, in which the 
mighty Figure (“I that speak in righteousness, mighty to 

165 


[XIII-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

save”), moving blood-red to the accomplishment of his 
purposes, says: “And my wrath, it upheld me.” Our hearts 
are not brave until they are stirred by great passions 
which move and sustain them. One of these is hatred of 
all wrong. Match it by the mightier love of all good 
and you make a soldier of Jesus Christ. And the world 
must be saved by such ideals. 


Thirteenth Week, Second Day: A Hymn for the City 

“Where cross the crowded ways of life, 

Where sound the cries of race and clan, 

Above the sound of selfish strife, 

We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man. 

In haunts of wretchedness and need, 

On shadow’d thresholds dark with fears, 

From paths where hide the lures of greed. 

We catch the vision of Thy tears. 

From tender childhood’s helplessness, 

From woman’s grief, man’s burden’d toil. 

From famish’d souls, from sorrow’s stress. 

Thy heart has never known recoil. 

The cup of water given for Thee 

Still holds the freshness of Thy grace; 

Yet long these multitudes to see 
The sweet compassion of Thy face. 

O Master, from the mountain side, 

Make haste to heal these hearts of pain; 

Among these restless throngs abide, 

O tread the city’s streets again; 

Till sons of men shall learn Thy love, 

And follow where Thy feet have trod; 

Till glorious from Thy heaven above, 

Shall come the city of our God.” 

—Frank Mason North, 1905. 

A hymn like this would not have been thought of a cen- 
166 





SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-3] 

tury ago as an expression of the defined purpose of the 
Church. But now we are conscious of the significance of 
the city and of the responsibility of making the cities of 
earth like the City of God. 

The modern city has come to possess the general char¬ 
acteristics of the commonwealth of nations. An Amer¬ 
ican city gathers into itself all the nations of earth; it 
presents the life of all the races in some particular aspect; 
it furnishes a challenge that we must meet in our own 
borders while we are seeking to solve the international 
problem. So the American city today is the microcosm of 
the great world. 

When we think of the city we are inclined to think of 
either the slums or the boulevards. Either the submerged 
tenth or the emerged tenth is considered; the great four- 
fifths of normal, healthy, and ambitious people are gener¬ 
ally forgotten. But here lies the hope of the future and the 
energy with which the city is to be uplifted. If we can 
charge the great middle class with the ideal of social re¬ 
sponsibility and universal good will, we shall have the re¬ 
sources lined up to save the modern city. 

The city is terrible in certain of its aspects; but it is 
wonderful and lovely in its inner character. Jesus loved 
the city and yearned for it. The Christian people must 
follow their Master in praying and working for the city of 
today. 

Thirteenth Week, Third Day: A Song for One’s 
Country 

“Lord! while for all mankind we pray. 

Of every clime and coast, 

Oh, hear us for our native land, 

The land we love the most. ^ 

Oh, guard our shores from every foe. 

With peace our borders bless, 

167 


[XIII-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

With prosperous times our cities crown, 

Our fields with plenteousness. 

Unite us in the sacred love 

Of knowledge, truth, and Thee; 

And let our hills and valleys shout 
The songs of liberty. 

Lord of the nations, thus to Thee 
Our country we commend; 

Be Thou her refuge and her trust, 

Her everlasting friend.” 

—John R. Wreford. 

In every possible way we have sought to emphasize the 
truth that no international ideal is permanently balanced 
and possible of realization unless it involves also loyalty 
to one’s country. Patriotism and an international vision 
cannot possibly be separated. 

Patriotic hymns, therefore, are vital to the songs of 
humanity. The one that we have chosen for the day’s 
meditation is not so well known as those that we sing 
commonly; but it is noble in sentiment. It begins with 
that blending of the universal and the particular interests 
which must unite in the true ideal of human brotherhood. 
We pray for all the world and we pray for our own country 
together. 

Then we do not hesitate to ask for those material bless¬ 
ings in which the foundations of all the higher life of a 
nation are laid. For it is impossible to expect any high 
or happy national life when the struggle for physical 
existence is so intense that it consumes all the energies of 
the body. The people are not able to hear the voice of God 
when they are consumed with anguish of spirit. 

Then we recognize that the basis of national and inter¬ 
national welfare is the same, that is, love and liberty. The 
deep desire to know, to be true, to be free, and to under¬ 
stand God assures the peace and happiness of a people, if 

168 


SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-4] 

only all these are fused into a passionate religious loyalty. 
God is the final object of the people’s love and devotion. 

These are the truths that have been put into this hymn 
of patriotism. It cannot be sung without realizing that 
when all the nations are united in such an ideal the true 
federation of noble peoples will have come. 

Thirteenth Week, Fourth Day: A Prayer for the 
People 

“When wilt Thou save the people? 

O God of mercy, when? 

Not kings and lords, but nations ! 

Not thrones and crowns, but men! 

Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they; 

Let them not pass, like weeds, away— 

Their heritage a sunless day: 

God save the people! 

Shall crime bring crime for ever, 

Strength aiding still the strong? 

Is it Thy will, O Father, 

That man shall toil for wrong? 

‘No,’ say Thy mountains; ‘No,’ Thy skies; 

Man’s clouded sun shall brightly rise, 

And songs ascend instead of sighs: 

God save the people! 

When wilt Thou save the people? 

O God of mercy, when ? 

The people, Lord, the people, 

Not thrones and crowns, but men! 

God save the people; Thine they are, 

Thy children, as Thine angels fair; 

From vice, oppression, and despair, 

God save the people!” 

—Ebenezer Elliott, 1781-1849. 

“God save the King!” has been the song of nations for 
generations. It was not a selfish prayer for a person in 

169 


[XIII-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

its original conception. The king represented the state 
and the welfare of both was a matter of mutual concern. 
But it came inevitably to be a petition for a person rather 
than for a people. It never can stand permanently as the 
hymn of a democracy. 

We are far nearer the heart and true yearning of the 
modern man in this hymn for the salvation of the people. 
One thinks of the old prophet’s challenge in the first 
chapter of Isaiah as he calls the heavens and the earth 
to hear the charge against those who have rebelled against 
God and to give in their verdict. The sky and the moun¬ 
tains are in league with the purpose of God to bring better 
things to his children than any that they have thus far 
attained. It is a fine and noble answer that they give back 
in response to the singer’s question. 

The people belong to God and God belongs to the people. 
This is the fundamental idea that lies under this passion¬ 
ate hymn of aspiration. Since this is so, in the end in- 
justice must be done away and truth and right must pre¬ 
vail. We are sure of this because God and the people 
belong to one another. We recall that this was the mes¬ 
sage of Phillips Brooks, here repeated in this hymn of 
faith and yearning. 


Thirteenth Week, Fifth Day: A Song for the New 
Day 

“Thy kingdom come—on bended knee 
The passing ages pray; 

And faithful souls have learned to see 
On earth that kingdom’s day. 

But the slow watches of the night 
Not less to God belong, 

And for the everlasting right 
The silent stars are strong. 

170 



SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-5] 

And lo ! already on the hills 
The flags of dawn appear; 

Gird up your loins, ye prophet souls, 

Proclaim the day is near— 

The day in whose clear-shining light 
All wrong shall stand revealed; 

When justice shall be clothed with might. 

And every hurt be healed; 

When knowledge, hand in hand with peace, 

Shall walk the earth abroad,— 

The day of perfect righteousness, 

The promised day of God.” 

—Frederick L. Hosmer, 1891. 

In days of war and suffering it is not easy to pray in 
confidence for the coming of the kingdom of God. The 
end seems so far off and the consummation is delayed so 
long! We need two assurances then: first, that the begin¬ 
ning of the better time is at hand, and, second, that it will 
surely come in the end. 

It takes the insight of the true prophet to discover the 
soul of good in things that appear to be evil and the indi¬ 
cations of the nobler time in the dark days of trouble. 
Keen eyes and discerning minds are called for in times of 
war and hatred. But the dark days are never wholly un¬ 
relieved by the signs of encouragement. Hopeful hearts 
see the faint blush of the morning even above the mists 
and clouds of bitter days. 

Then we like to be sure that the eternal forces of the 
universe are on the side of the right. There are times 
when we simply must rally to our side these spiritual en¬ 
ergies on which the leaders of the race always have relied. 
They will not fail us in the end. This is the truth that 
Washington Gladden put into his song of hope entitled, 
'‘Ultima Veritas.” 

171 


[XIII-6] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

“In the bitter waves of woe, 

Beaten and tossed about, 

By the sullen winds that blow 

From the desolate shores of doubt, 
When the anchors that faith has cast 
Are dragging in the gale, 

I am quietly holding fast 

To the things that cannot fail. 


I know that right is right; 

That it is not good to lie; 

That love is better than spite, 

And a neighbor than a spy; 

I know that passion needs 
The leash of a sober mind; 

I know that generous deeds 
Some sure reward will find. 

That the rulers must obey; 

That the givers shall increase; 

That duty lights the way 

For the beautiful feet of Peace; 

In the darkest night of the year, 
When the stars have all gone out, 
That courage is better than fear; 
That faith is truer than doubt. 

And fierce though the fiends may fight 
And long though the angels hide, 

I know that Truth and Right 
Have the Universe on their side; 
And that somewhere beyond the stars 
Is a Love that is better than fate; 
When the night unlocks her bars 
I shall see Him—and I will wait.” 


Thirteenth Week, Sixth Day: 
Wide Missions 


A Hymn of World- 


‘ We’ve a story to tell to the nations 

That shall turn their hearts to the right, 
A story of truth and mercy, 

A story of peace and light. 

172 




SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-6] 

Chorus: 

For the darkness shall turn to dawning, 

And the dawning to noon-day bright, 

And Christ’s great kingdom shall cpme on earth, 

The kingdom of Love and Light. 

We’ve a song to be sung to the nations, 

That shall lift their hearts to the Lord; 

A song that shall conquer evil 
And shatter the spear and sword. 

We’ve a message to give to the nations, 

That the Lord who reigneth above, 

Hath sent us his Son to save us, 

And show us that God is love. 

We’ve a Saviour to show to the nations 
Who the path of sorrow has trod, 

That all of the world’s great peoples 
Might come to the truth of God.” 

—Colin Sterne, 1896. 

The missionary hymns of the Christian Church are 
amotig the most beautiful that ever have been composed 
to express the highest ideals of Christianity. It is not an 
easy task to select any one that will represent this group 
of songs of conquering faith. The one printed above is 
of recent date and seems to sum up and express the motive 
of world-wide missions. 

The imagination of Christians always has been captured 
by the idea of the universal extension and the final triumph 
of the “faith of the fathers.” It also has been apparent 
that it must be also the faith of the children. The un¬ 
modified faith as the fathers expressed it never can fully 
meet the needs of their children. Every age must state 
its own faith in the terms of its own time. 

And there is no part of the record of Christian action 
that is more splendid than that which reports the mis¬ 
sionary achievement under the inspiration of the interna- 


[XIII-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tional ideal which Jesus brought to this world. It has the 
largest number of noble names in it. It has the greatest 
record of universal benefits to its credit. The military- 
masters of history have brought death and destruction in 
the train of their efforts; but the great world-missionaries 
have never done anything but good to the people to whom 
they have gone with their message of a Saviour. These 
messengers of good news have been the supreme benefac¬ 
tors of the race, because they have been the ceaseless 
heralds of love and good will. 

Thirteenth Week, Seventh Day: A Hymn for the 
Coming People 

“These things shall be! A loftier race 

Than e’er the world hath known shall rise, 

With flame of freedom in their souls. 

And light of knowledge in their eyes. 

They shall be gentle, brave, and strong, 

To spill no drop of blood, but dare 

All that may plant man’s lordship firm 
On earth and fire and sea and air. 

Nation with nation, land with land, 

Unarmed shall live as comrades free; 

In every heart and brain shall throb 
The pulse of one fraternity. 

New arts shall bloom, of loftier mould, 

And mightier music thrill the skies; 

And ev’ry life shall be a song, 

When all the earth is paradise. 

There shall be no more sin nor shame, 

Though pain and passion may not die. 

For man shall be at one with God 
In bonds of firm necessity.” 

—J. Addington Symonds, 1880. 

174 




SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-c] 

There are four marks of the loftier race represented in 
this great song. 

The first is freedom. It is impossible for the dream of 
brotherhood to come true while anyone is in bondage. 
This means something more than physical slavery. The 
man who has caught the vision of the unity of mankind 
will never stop until he has worked himself and his com¬ 
rades free from all the weaknesses and sins that mar his 
manhood. 

The second mark of the nobler race is peace. Far off as 
that day seems at times, we know in spite of war and 
wrong that the time is coming when reason and good will 
shall prevail among men. Sometime reason will gain the 
mastery over selfish passion. Then the race will turn no 
more to kill and destroy. 

The third mark is prosperity. How we destroy the good 
gifts of God to us! There is enough for all of us on 
earth, if only we would produce it and distribute it with 
true regard for the welfare of all mankind. Yet we burn 
and break and waste until more than half the world is 
miserably poor and only a small number are rich. There 
must be a better time. The nobler race will bring it. 

The fourth characteristic of the coming people is their 
union with God in purpose and blessing. Jesus said that 
he and the Father were one; he prayed that all men might 
also be one with them. This was not a mere beautiful 
phrase. Jesus meant it to be a fact. It sets the ideal for 
the race as well as for the individual. 

Comment for the Week 

As we study the songs of the Christian people we are im¬ 
pressed by two facts: 

They reveal insight rather than express doctrine. The 
singers have looked into their own hearts and into the 

175 


[XIII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

broad world and then they have written what they saw 
there. It is the man of vision who has written the song. 
It is an outburst, not a formula. This is what gives it 
power. It is fresh from the fields and does not smell of 
the lamp. The stamp of originality is upon it; it does not 
mouth other men’s opinions. Therefore these songs are 
refreshing and they set our feet forward with new joy on 
the roads that lead to victory. 

They voice aspiration rather than definition. These 
hymns set forth what the race longs to be when it is utter¬ 
ing its noblest moods. There is something stifling in 
definitions and formal teachings. They stiffen us into 
opposition and set us in the mood of criticism and protest. 
But when we hear a great aspiration expressed in forms of 
beauty, we are won to assent with eagerness. It is like the 
call of the morning to a refreshed body. Fatigued and 
depressed, we cannot answer the summons to new tasks 
with joy; but when the powers of body and mind have been 
renewed by sleep and the bugles of the morning call us 
into action we go to our tasks with joy. 

Nobody ever fought for a formal proposition with half 
the passion with which he would face death for a song. 
That is because the passion of aspiration is added to the 
expression of essential truth in the hymn. We know that 
the writer has expressed the highest aspiration and deep¬ 
est insight of the race in the hymn which becomes the 
rallying cry of our militant energies. 

The substance of the vision in these hymns which we 
have studied can be discerned readily. At least four items 
are constantly recurring: 

The worth of humanity. The race is seen to be worth 
so much that God is ready to make supreme effort to save 
it. Mankind appears in these hymns as the most precious 
thing in the universe. To the cynics this is not true. 
They are fond of telling us that human life is a petty side- 

176 


SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-c] 

show on a ridiculous satellite of a third-rate star. They 
reduce humanity to its comparative place alongside astro¬ 
nomic space and geologic time and then ask us to pity our¬ 
selves that we dared to think that we were worth anything 
to God. 

The singers of the race songs are impatient with such a 
dismal report. They look into the universe and estimate 
relative values. They are aware of the light-years of 
distance that sunder the stars in their cold immensities; 
but they look at what Livingstone did in Africa within the 
span of a human life and declare that the values are all in 
favor of the great lover’s work. They are sure that “a 
ruddy drop of human blood the surging sea outweighs.” 
So they tell us that we are to believe in man and therefore 
to work for him. 

The love of the Father God. The singers are sure that 
the love of the Father of all mankind never will cease to 
act for their highest good. They know that God is great 
and good and near; but they are sure also that he loves all 
his children with an everlasting love and that he will never 
leave them nor forsake them. 

They know that the world is full of bitter grief and that 
rending pain is the lot of man; but they are clear that 
even in these experiences the love of God is shown to his 
children. So their songs bring comfort and hope into the 
long hours of the soul’s dark night and they steady the 
flagging steps of those who march doggedly ahead through 
the quivering heat of dusty roads. 

What a glorious thing it is to be sure of the love of 
God for all the world ! That Chinese coolie; that African 
mother; that statesman in the Senate; that tramp defying 
the laws of healthy labor; that college girl playing tennis; 
that gutter kid leading his gang to new mischief—think of 
it—God loves them every one and there is a place in his 
heart for each. Somehow that sets pulses beating in the 
177 


[XIII-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

heart of a man that never thrill at any other stimulus. 
And it is the poets and dreamers of the commonwealth 
of God who tell us this. 

The loveliness of Christ. It is difficult to find the right 
word to express what we mean. Perhaps “loveliness” is 
too sentimental a term; but we mean it strongly and pos¬ 
itively. The singers of the Christian hymns put this truth 
at the very center of their vision and aspiration. They see 
the worth of humanity and the love of God both expressed 
in Jesus Christ. What God is and what the soul is worth 
are seen in his perfect life. 

But there is something far more than this in the vision 
of the loveliness of Christ. Somehow he has the power to 
make men like him as he comes into them and lives again 
within the ranges of their own human action. This is a 
truth impossible of definition; but it is possible of expe¬ 
rience. And this is what Christians have experienced and 
what they have reported in all the great utterances of their 
faith. We are created anew in Christ. 

Perhaps this seems at first glance too vague a descrip¬ 
tion of the great motives that master the life of a strong 
man. But this is the way in which Paul describes the pur¬ 
poses that guided him. And certainly Paul was a man of 
the most forceful and practical character. He acted the 
part of a constructive thinker, a practical man, a genuine 
leader of others. Charles Cuthbert Hall speaks of him as 
“the most cosmopolitan of churchmen.” He knew how to 
take command of the frightened crew of a ship in a storm; 
he was easily the master of situations that would have 
daunted any but the most clear-headed of men. But when 
he tried to describe the very inmost fact about himself he 
said that Christ, living and personal, was that fact, resident 
in his living body and commanding his personal will 
through the actual possession of it. That was no weak¬ 
ling’s theory. 


178 


SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE [XIII-c] 

The triumph of goodness. The hymns of the faith have 
much to say concerning the final victory of the good in 
human life. This takes many forms. We find it often 
represented under the figure of the city. Sometimes it is 
the kingdom of God that embodies the idea. But in every 
case it is the unshaken faith in the victory of the forces 
of right over those of wrong. 

Such a faith is absolutely necessary if we are to win a 
consistent and serene view of life. This universe is not a 
permanent dualism, with the good always compelled to do 
battle with the evil. Sometime the higher unity must 
come and the good must triumph. This is the kind of a 
faith in which Robert Browning “never turned his back 
but marched breast forward.” In such a faith Jesus lived 
and died. This is the noble heritage transmitted to us by 
the past. In a faith like this we are not afraid to go out 
to meet the future “without fear and with manly hearts.” 

So the songs of the Christian people are heartening 
and ringing with courage and good cheer. Those that 
sound the note of gloom soon pass away; the great hymns 
come sounding down out of the past where brave men 
wrought and conquered, telling us that God is on the side 
of the true and right. The Christian hosts move for¬ 
ward to the conquest of the whole world, singing as they 

go- 


179 


CHAPTER XIV 


A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL 

The selections studied this week are taken chiefly from 
two books written by President William DeWitt Hyde of 
Bowdoin College. The first of these is the Lyman Beecher 
Lectures on Preaching at the Yale School of Religion for 
1916, entitled, “The Gospel of Good Will as Revealed in 
Contemporary Scriptures.” The second is a small book 
entitled, “The Best Man I Know Developed Out of the 
Will for the Good of All.” This is a study in brief out¬ 
line of the character that is created through loyalty to the 
international factors in the Christian religion. Good will 
is regarded by President Hyde as a most real and potent 
element in daily life. As he says: 

“Good Will is not an impersonal abstraction floating in 
empty air. It is the fundamental attribute of God; the es¬ 
sential nature of Christ; the characteristic quality of the 
Spirit: and whoever lives in Good Will thereby becomes 
a son or daughter of God, a brother or sister of Christ, a 
disciple and friend of the Spirit.”—“The Gospel of Good 
Will,” p. xi. 

Daily Readings 

Fourteenth Week, First Day: The Best Man's Inter¬ 
nationalism 

“His will for the good of all leads the Christian 
to take up for himself and for his country more 
than the United States’ burden cautiously coun- 
180 


A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-i] 

selled by Washington, more than the American 
burden audaciously assumed by Monroe, more 
than the white man’s burden eloquently sung by 
Kipling—the civilized man’s burden prophesied 
by Isaiah and promulgated by Christ—the burden 
of our share in the federation of democracy, the 
promotion of the peace of the world, and the pro¬ 
tection of the innocent weak by the leagued might 
of the strong. 

Thus when he fights he will be fighting not for 
his country alone, but for that world welfare of 
which his nation is one of many agents;—he will 
be fighting for the real good of the nation against 
which he is compelled to wage war.” 

—“The Best Man I Know,” pp. 92, 93. 

It may seem like hypocrisy to speak seriously of fight¬ 
ing for the real welfare of a nation with whom another is 
at war; but it is most serious fact. Just as a conflict of 
any kind may easily be imagined in which the one who 
takes the offensive is suffering and is in the wrong, so we 
may have a great contest between nations in which one or 
more that are in the wrong may finally be defeated and 
this may be for their highest good. Who doubts now that 
in the great Civil War in the United States the Northern 
armies truly achieved the highest good of the South? It 
was a bitter conflict and the struggle was carried on with 
intense passion; but in the end the Confederate cause won 
its victory through defeat, since the higher good of the 
states in the South was achieved in the contest. 

And therefore the burden of other nations rests upon 
each member of the great international family. If the 
time comes when one offends, it may be necessary for the 
others, in the exercise of the highest good will, to carry 
on war and even to destroy vast resources of the offender, 
not for the sake of punishment, but in order to work out 
the highest welfare of the nation that defies the laws of 

181 


[XIV-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

international security and honor. It is no longer possible 
to live in ease and isolation; the common burden must be 
borne by all the nations together. This is the most ex¬ 
tensive and logical application of the message of Christ to 
the whole world. 

Fourteenth Week, Second Day: Rendering Interna¬ 
tional Service 

“The man of Good Will must rise higher than 
nationalism in his patriotism. President Wilson 
at the close of his message in December, 1915, 
called attention to the new era on which we have 
entered. It is the era in which we have had the 
greatness of world-concerns thrust upon our at¬ 
tention. We cannot think world-thoughts worth¬ 
ily without being prepared for whatever sacrifice 
our world-responsibilities may call. Not in readi¬ 
ness for aggression or insolent interference in the 
affairs of other nations: but in sympathy for all 
who are in disorder and oppression, we must be 
strong enough to render our reasonable and pro¬ 
portionate service; by peace whenever peaceful 
arbitration is possible; by war whenever righteous 
war is unavoidable. The nation that lives up to 
the Gospel of Good Will must accept the per¬ 
petual sacrifice which world-wide responsibility 
involves. On no easier or cheaper terms can any 
nation rise from nominal to vital Christianity.” 

—“The Gospel of Good Will,” p. 158. 

It is far easier to consider accepting responsibility than 
it is to render at great cost the service that is essentially 
involved in the fact of responsibility accepted. Yet every 
nation is pitilessly compelled to go on to the second step 
once the first is taken. For this is the practical test of in¬ 
ternational feeling and vision. The brotherhood of nations 
is something more than the theory of dreamers; it is a 
stern fact that may at the last issue call a nation to give 

182 


A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-3] 

itself in utmost sacrifice of its resources to the defense of 
the ideal. 

President Hyde says that the service that a nation may 
be called upon to render must be “reasonable” and “pro¬ 
portionate.” These are significant words. No nation is 
supposed to be swayed exclusively by its emotions; nor, 
on the other hand, dare it be simply logical in all its deci¬ 
sions. But reason ought to determine duty and define 
service. Then the obligation is in proportion to the power 
that the nation possesses. Even in this regard, however, 
there may come times when one nation alone must stand 
in the place of peril and bear a burden and render a serv¬ 
ice entirely out of proportion to its size or resources. So 
there is no rule that can be defined for every case. The 
nation which most truly understands its international re¬ 
sponsibilities will never be swayed by mere prudence; 
it will dare to undertake any service at any cost, so long 
as it recognizes the need and is devoted to the ideal. 

Fourteenth Week, Third Day: Service to the Limit 
“Rather than sacrifice treaty rights and the 
civilization that rests upon them to the ambitions 
of a treaty-breaking militarism, Belgium, single- 
handed and unsupported through those terrible 
days of August, 1914, cheerfully, unitedly, patri¬ 
otically, religiously, sacrificed the material to the 
spiritual; the individual to the social; the na¬ 
tional to the international; and gave her little 
but essential contribution to the cause of human¬ 
ity and liberty, democracy and essential Chris¬ 
tianity, in the hour of its greatest danger. Bel¬ 
gium has suffered the loss of all things—all save 
her soul. But, in consequence of her sacrifice, 
there is still hope for the cause of national liberty 
and international honor.” 

—“The Gospel of Good Will,” p. 136. 

We noted in the study of yesterday that it was impos- 
183 


[XIV-4] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

sible to determine the range of service to the international 
cause which any nation might be called upon in an emer¬ 
gency to render. We now look at the specific example of 
this principle that is most familiar to us. 

It would have been easy for Belgium to have yielded to 
the demand of Germany that she permit the armies of the 
Kaiser freely to pass through her territory on the way 
to France. The world would have known that Belgium 
was powerless to resist adequately. She could have made 
a most fair plea of being compelled to yield to necessity. 
But Belgium did not do this, and the story of the Three 
Hundred at Thermopylae bids fair to have another tale 
as glorious to rival it. 

In fact, it is impossible to put any logical limits on heroic 
international loyalty. It will not accept the classifications 
of prudence; it is too big and chivalrous to do this. It 
does not stop to weigh reasons and balance considera¬ 
tions; when it discovers that a human right is being vio¬ 
lated, it springs to the rescue without stopping to ask 
questions. As John Masefield says, there were countless 
young Britishers who did not know much or even any¬ 
thing about the geography of Belgium or Poland; still less 
did they understand the difficult diplomatic questions in¬ 
volved; but somehow they knew that a great wrong was 
being done and they leaped in to give all they had to set 
that wrong straight. This is instinctive internationalism 
it is the spirit of Christ prompting to service to the limit. 

Fourteenth Week, Fourth Day: Good Will and Pre¬ 
paredness 

“Good Will requires such measure of prepared¬ 
ness as will defend us against aggression, fulfil 
our obligations to our neighbors, maintain our 
rights in treaties, and contribute to the justice and 
peace of the world an influence commensurate 
with our numbers, our wealth, and our intelli- 
184 




A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-4] 

gence. Less is folly; more is crime. That the 
preacher of the Gospel of Good Will should pro¬ 
claim; leaving to statesmen the determination of 
precisely what is that measure of preparedness. 

The Christian attitude toward war is happily ex¬ 
pressed in the epitaph proposed for Rupert Brooke 
and Roland Poulter: ‘They went to war in the 
cause of peace and died without hate that love 
might live.’ ” 

—“The Gospel of Good Will,” p. 43. 

The highest loyalty to the international consciousness 
does not demand that any nation shall permit itself to be¬ 
come the passive object of aggression. If we all could 
reach the ideal together there would be no need to take 
time for the practical consideration of this subject; but 
as the world is organized today there are practical reasons 
for such a measure of preparation to maintain the integrity 
and just rights of a nation as shall make it impossible for 
a plundering nation to have its will. In fact, love is 
never weak. If anyone thinks this to be so, let him see 
what strength the love of offspring will infuse into a 
mother animal. Beware the she-bear defending cubs! 
And therefore the highest love of all does not remove the 
most loyal love for one’s own. The only inconsistency that 
appears exists in the theory and not in the practice. 

The Great War has been proving this. It was love for 
the unseen women and children of violated Belgium which 
evoked the resistance of the most internationally-minded 
nations to defend justice and honor at any cost. Partner¬ 
ship in the alliance against Germany sprang from a 
sense of outraged good will. That accounts for the fierce¬ 
ness and the stubbornness of the conflict. That is the rea¬ 
son why our own country committed itself to a struggle 
which will never be considered as fully settled until it is 
settled right. 


185 


[XIV-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Fourteenth Week, Fifth Day: Dare We Trust the 
Principles of Jesus? 

“Christ does not expect of his followers either 
peace or war, as such. He expects Good Will 
toward all. When that Good Will comes to be 
the spirit of all men and nations, peace will follow 
as surely as daylight follows sunrise. It is the 
Christian’s privilege and duty to have that Good 
Will toward all, to develop it in others, and to the 
extent of his influence to make it the policy of his 
nation, and through his nation to commend it in 
the form of international agreements, treaties, and 
courts of arbitration to all the nations of the 
earth.” 

—“The Gospel of Good Will,” p. 36. 

The question, “Are we Christian ?” has been followed by 
the question “Can we be Christian?” and the still further 
problem has been presented in the searching inquiry, “Dare 
we be Christian?” 

There always have been a small number of believers 
in Christ who have gone to the full extent of daring to 
trust the principles of Jesus and carrying them fully into 
practice. Sometimes this literalism has been actually 
based on a misunderstanding of what Jesus taught and 
practiced; but generally it has been an honest attempt to 
take Jesus at his word. The mind of Tolstoi was thus 
literal. Doubtless it led him into many positions that are 
permanently untenable; but the result of his efforts to 
make good with the Sermon on the Mount is still a mighty 
force in the thinking of the world. 

But the discussion of the literalness with which the 
principles of Jesus should be followed has generally been 
confined to the minor details, rather than extended to the 
larger implications of his principles. The real problem is 
not concerned with the matter of taking absolutely such 
a sentence as “Resist not evil,” but rather with whether 

186 


A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-6] 

we should take literally the essential corollaries of such a 
term as “Our Father.” What we need is a literalism 
which will not be contented with details, but will insist 
upon loyalty to the great items in the body of the Master’s 
teaching. Such a literalism will bring home to our minds 
and hearts the real significance of the message of Christ 
to all mankind. Then, as President Hyde says, we shall 
carry the principles of Jesus over into the relations of all 
the nations. It is a great faith that dares to do this. 

Fourteenth Week, Sixth Day: Christ and the Union 
of Races 

“The national principle has had a disastrous 
destructive effect on world civilization. A nation 
destroys itself, annihilates the whole sum of civil¬ 
ization, if these national unities do not see that a 
wider phase must follow—the reestablishment of 
true cooperation between the different races. In 
the union of races will the universal Christ be 
born in us.” 

—Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Professor of 
Education in Munich, quoted in “The Gospel 
of Good Will,” p. 39. 

The significance of this quotation from an eminent 
German teacher is self-evident. There is a certain sense 
in which patriotism may be only a refined form of selfish¬ 
ness. If it consists wholly in loyalty to country or native 
land, it may be one of the most mischievous forms of loy¬ 
alty. For just as it is impossible for a single state in the 
American Union to realize its highest life apart from the 
fellowship of other states, so it is impossible for any nation 
to achieve its highest life apart from the mutual help and 
support of all other nations in the world. 

We simply must extend the boundaries of our thinking 
until they embrace the whole world; and every nation 
must come to its complete self-expression in the midst 

187 


[XIV-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of this universal fellowship. To do less is to isolate a 
nation from the forces that make its life complete. 

But when this ideal is defined we have a new sense of 
the meaning of Christ for the world. Instead of think¬ 
ing of Christ in the terms of theology alone, we must 
think of him in the terms of treaties and international 
law. He has the right to claim his lordship in the parlia¬ 
ments of the world as well as in the schools of theology. 
Such an ideal helps us to see how Christ comes to all life 
with the claim of his authority. He lays his hand upon 
the great programs of the nations and insists that they 
shall be guided by his principles. 

The dream of the Christian people has been concerned 
with the mastery of all life by Jesus. Therefore they 
must see that this authority is to be exercised in the con¬ 
trol of politics and industry, as well as in the mastery of 
the moral motives of men. The universality of Christ 
involves the union of the nations. 

Fourteenth Week, Seventh Day: It Cometh Not by 
Observation 

“We must not measure the coming of the Way 
[that is, the full realization of the principles 
taught and illustrated by Jesus Christ] in the out¬ 
side world any more than in our own hearts, by 
immediate, visible, tangible results. For the king¬ 
dom comes silently, imperceptibly, like a thief in 
x the night, like leaven hid in meal, like a tree, small 
at first, but in the end mighty and magnificent. 
There is at first no conspicuous change of form to 
which one may call attention, and say, Lo here, or, 

Lo there. On the contrary, it takes up the old 
materials of habit, custom, and tradition that lie 
ready at hand in the race, or community, or indi¬ 
vidual it enters, and gradually transforms them 
into expressions of the new Spirit of love which it 
imparts.” —“Jesus’ Way,” p. 190. 

188 


A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-c] 

President Hyde desired to show that the Way of Jesus 
was destined to universal sway and to this end he devoted 
the last chapter of the book from which the quotation 
above is made. And it is a necessary view of the interna¬ 
tional character of the religion that bears the name of 
Christ. It is meant for all the world; but it does not come 
into immediate realization, nor are there such definite 
signs of its coming that it is possible to indicate when it 
is to be made concrete in human life. 

Theodore Parker is reported to have said, “The trouble 
seems to be that I am in a hurry and God is not.” That 
was simply another way of stating the fact that the inter¬ 
national consciousness for which the best of the race 
yearns does not come swiftly. There are certain great 
changes that go on in the earth’s. crust that are so slow 
and so continental in character that they are known as 
“secular” changes. And this great movement in human 
thinking and action which we call internationalism is such 
a continental alteration of narrow visions and estimates 
that it cannot possibly take place in a few years or even 
centuries. So we have to learn to be patient, like Jesus, 
and wait while we work and work while we wait. 

Comment for the Week 

The words “Good Will” have come rapidly into cur¬ 
rent usage and will doubtless be used more and more as 
the full meaning of the Great War and the issues of it are 
discerned. Rev. Charles F. Dole has described “The 
Coming People” as “the people of good will”; and Presi¬ 
dent Hyde has made good will the standard of personal 
character and the supreme law of social life. 

But unless the essential meaning of the words is under¬ 
stood there is great danger that they will be worn trite 
within a few years. Therefore it is necessary to look be- 

189 


[XIV-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

neath the surface meaning of the terms and find out what 
is really involved in them. 

At first glance it seems as if good will were a benevolent 
regard for the welfare of others which would lead logi¬ 
cally to the application of the Golden Rule in all the rela¬ 
tions of life. This is a noble conception of the ruling 
principle of life and ought to be kept clearly in mind as 
we think of what men of good will are. However, there 
are some far deeper values involved and these we must 
seek out and appreciate. 

Undoubtedly Christian people associate the words with 
the “Gloria in Excelsis” of Luke 2:14: “Glory to God in 
the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” 
This translation in the Authorized Version, however, 
does scant justice to the original and the rendering in the 
American Standard Version is far closer to the Greek 
words: 

“Glory to God in the highest, 

And on earth peace among men in whom he is well 
pleased.” 

Here, then, we are given the deeper meaning of the words. 
What is the “Good Pleasure” or “Good Will” of God? 
To whom is it displayed, and how does this determine the 
meaning of good will for us today? 

The interpretation of the words calls us to consider the 
way in which they are used in the record of the baptism 
and transfiguration of Jesus. These occur in Mark 1: 11 
and Matt. 17: 5. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased” must be used as the true expression of 
good will. God shows good will to men and Jesus is the 
supreme expression of the Father’s regard for us. The 
example of good will is seen in God’s gracious and 
mighty favor, shown to men who do not deserve it as well 
as to Jesus who was worthy of it. So the motive of good 

190 


A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-c] 

will is much more than generous consideration of the in¬ 
terests of others. It is a motive that goes to the very 
depths of our being and makes us act as God acts toward 
men. 

Note how this enriches the warrants for good will. Men 
are constantly seeking to lay the basis of happiness and 
welfare in the generous sentiments of fellowmen for each 
other; but the roots of the conviction do not run deep 
enough to sustain us in the trials that inevitably follow 
the effort to live the life of good will. We must see the 
radical and permanent reasons for the principle if we are 
to make it a rule of life. The fact that we experience the 
good will of God toward us is the only final warrant for 
men’s loving each other and seeking their common good 
on earth. God is pleased with the moral health and mutual 
happiness of men; he gives us his gracious favor long 
before we deserve it and extends it long after we have 
misbehaved enough to justify its withdrawal. 

So good will is a religious motive and never can be 
built successfully into life as a lower ideal. When we act 
from the motive of good will in our relations with others 
we are carrying God’s great ruling principle into the range 
of our human actions and proving that we are the children 
of God. The only way in which we can prove our divine 
birthright is to act like the children of God. Jesus attests 
his divine nature by living a life wholly in accord with 
the will of God. If his acts had denied his words, the 
teachings would have been void of meaning. But Jesus 
never failed to match his words by his deeds; and thus he 
proved his divine character. 

So human good will is the translation of the love of 
God into the plain terms of human life, where all men 
can see and understand it. Jesus made it concrete in the 
highest sense in his perfect life; and we must make it 
equally clear in the translation that we give of it to our 

191 


[XIV-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

own generation. The fact that Jesus made good with it 
shows that it is a truth which can be put into practice in 
human life. And each one of us is called in his own 
place to give his own expression to the great principle. 

Now this ideal of good will, resting it in the very nature 
of God, gives it fresh beauty and power as a law of daily 
conduct. Phillips Brooks said, “The real reason why 
men do not love God is that they do not really believe that 
God loves them.” It is impossible to think of any man 
failing to give back the right response to the God of love 
if he is really sure that God loves him first. The philos¬ 
ophy of loving is put clearly in the New Testament: “We 
love, because he first loved us” (i John 4: 19). The same 
truth might be carried over to the concrete expression of 
good will and we might say, “We act from the motive of 
good will to others because God first of all acted from the 
same motive toward us.” How reasonable and right it all 
seems! 

Unless we can refresh our minds and hearts at some 
such spring as this, we shall faint and fail in our effort to 
make good will the law of daily life. For it is the most 
difficult task to which we can set our hands. Jesus tried 
it to the limit and it sent him to a cross. He was mis¬ 
understood and persecuted and killed. The disciple has 
no right to expect that he will not be as his Lord. It would 
seem as if the earnest desire to seek the highest welfare of 
others, to love and not to hate, to help and not to hurt, 
would bring nothing but approval and reward. But, as a 
matter of fact, we know that it is not so. The stones that 
one generation throws at its prophets of love are used by 
the generation following to build a monument to the 
martyr. 

So we need an adequate source of hope and courage in 
our struggle to live the life of good will. There is no 
single ground of comfort and strength more satisfactory 

192 



A TEACHER OF GOOD WILL [XIV-c] 

than this: Good will is the character of God and the mo¬ 
tive of Jesus, therefore it cannot fail for me. This is the 
highest and most rewarding partnership into which our 
souls can possibly enter. It calls out the best in ourselves 
and it places the resources of divine assurance and help 
at our disposal. We take our part and God takes his; 
under the terms of that contract it is impossible for good 
will to be defeated. 

Whatever victories hate and selfishness may win for 
the time cannot be permanent, for the love of God is 
mightier than anything else in the world. If we are in 
league with it, we, too, cannot be defeated. So the man 
who has made good will the law of his life goes into hard 
experiences knowing that he has the invincible help of 
God with him. That rouses our flagging spirits. That 
puts new strength in our tired hands. That makes our 
struggle count for the wining forces in the universe, and 
steadies us when we could not otherwise hold out longer 
or advance another inch. 


193 


CHAPTER XV 


THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES 

On October 1-4, 1917, a Congress was held in Pitts¬ 
burgh on the Purposes and Methods of Inter-Church Fed¬ 
erations under the auspices of the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America. Among the reports pre¬ 
sented and discussed at this great meeting was one on 
Department of International Justice and Good Will.” This 
report was prepared with great care, from a broad survey 
of the field. It laid down fundamental principles and out 
lined a specific program of action. It faced the definite 
task of “the establishment of a Christian world order.” 
Therefore it assumed that the fundamental principles of 
Christianity, such as justice, mercy, and good will, can be 
applied to all the world. The report has been incor 
rated in “A Manual of Inter-Church Work,” from which 
the following quotations are selected. The report as a 
whole may fairly be taken as the voice of the Protestant 
churches of America speaking on the matter of the interna 
tional aspects of the Christian religion. 


Daily Readings 

Fifteenth Week, First Day: The Reach of the Chris¬ 
tian Program 

“The Christian program for individual and for 
social salvation cannot be carried to real and 
permanent success until the kingdom of God is 
firmly established in international and interracial 
relations.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 172. 

194 




THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV-i] 

In laying down this fundamental proposition the Pitts¬ 
burgh Congress recognized the fact that the Christian 
religion is something more than a pervasive spirit of good 
will abroad in the world. It requires an institution—many 
institutions, in fact—through which to express itself in 
any generation. It has a program to which it is com¬ 
mitted. 

This involves a certain danger, for institutions have a 
tendency to become fixed and mechanical, expending all 
available energy on their own upkeep. The freshness and 
force with which the ideal worked at first are soon lost 
unless great care is taken to renew the initial enthusiasm. 
Yet the ideal must come to expression in some sort of 
form; and it is the duty of all who love it to see that the 
institution never becomes an end in itself, but that it 
performs its growing function for the ideal. Chris¬ 
tianity has an “organ.” It consists of all the institutions 
through which the kingdom of God which we studied in 
Chapter III, gets itself expressed in life. 

What are the limits of the Christian ideal? What does 
it include? Certainly if it is a partial affair, limited to 
small areas of life, it cannot be expected to satisfy the 
complete desire of humanity. The only religion that will 
meet the cravings of the human spirit is one that can 
include every human interest and aspiration. 

And this is what the Christian religion does. Its true 
reach is to all the nations and all the races. There may 
be types which we can label “Greek,” “Roman,” “Eng¬ 
lish,” or “Protestant Christianity”; but real Christianity, 
in its true and universal forms, will not tolerate any such 
qualifying adjectives as these. It must unite the races 
and embrace the nations. 

In a recent sermon, Rev. G. Campbell Morgan said: 

“In every way the outlook of man is more extensive than 
it was. The universe is bigger than it was two genera- 

195 


[XV-2] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tions ago. That is to say, men know its bigness better 
than they did. Where men thought parochially they are 
now thinking nationally. Where they thought of a nation 
they are thinking of a commonwealth. Where they 
thought of a world they are thinking of a universe/’ 1 

Fifteenth Week, Second Day: America's Part 

“America now has unique opportunity and re¬ 
sponsibility for bringing in the new world order. 

The American government and all its people 
should be as active in promoting world organiza¬ 
tion and international good will as they are in pro¬ 
viding for national safety and prosperity.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 173. 

Granted that Christianity must have a program the 
reach of which is international and interracial, the question 
arises, How shall such a program be carried out? We are 
inclined to announce general principles somewhat glibly 
and never consider whether or not there is any prospect 
of realizing them under average human conditions. Pro¬ 
grams never work themselves out; they have to be worked 
out. There must be a sense of responsibility for practical 
accomplishment to go along with every new vision of the 
ideal. 

Why does the responsibility for working out an inter¬ 
national program of good will rest peculiarly upon Amer¬ 
ica? The reasons lie in our location, our history, and the 
genius of our institutions. We are widely separated from 
the other continents and therefore freed from many of the 
jealousies and entanglements which are inevitable, for 
example, in central Europe. The Great War has shown 
that we can enter the struggles of Europe if we must; 
but in spite of this, we are still a nation whose physical 
position gives it the privilege of becoming the apostle 

1 “ Christ: and the World at War,” p. 138. 

I96 





THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV-3] 

of international good will with the least suspicion of self- 
seeking being aroused among other nations. 

Then our history confirms the significance of our loca¬ 
tion. We never have cherished selfish designs against the 
possessions of other races. However we may be criticised 
for the motives of the war with Mexico, our treatment of 
Cuba is the example of the true policy of our Government 
in its relations with other peoples. This gives us the 
advantage of precedent and tradition as the promoter of 
international good will. 

That this is still the desire of our people is shown by 
the existence of the Canadian border. For more than a 
hundred years that border has existed without armed 
guards. It is there, as real and permanent as though it 
were marked by a line of forts and patrolled by the feet 
of pacing soldiers. It stands for our ideals as a people. 
We are the country best qualified to extend that Canadian 
boundary line until it shall become the ideal boundary of 
all the nations, guarded by mutual sympathy and common 
interests instead of swords. 

Fifteenth Week, Third Day: The Part of the 
Churches 

“The new task, accordingly, of American 
churches is to Christianize America’s interna¬ 
tional relations. Easy it is for a nation to see 
the motes in the eyes of the nations and to ignore 
utterly the beam in its own eye. It is easy but it is 
dangerous.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work.” 

Certainly this task is “new” if it is compared with the 
mission of the Church as it was defined a century ago. 
This statement must provoke criticism. Is not the plain 
and only task of the Church to save men? Humanity 
must be converted by the action of the Church. What 

197 


[XV-3] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

has so vague a task as “to Christianize America’s inter¬ 
national relations” to do with this most specific and exact¬ 
ing work? 

But there is no inconsistency between the two tasks. 
On the contrary, neither is complete without the other. 
The broadest and most helpful relations of the nation de¬ 
pend upon the relations of the individual with God. The 
business of the Church is to “save sinners”; but indi¬ 
viduals cannot be saved out of their environment. They 
must be saved in their human situation and then be the 
saviors of it. And neither can a nation be saved alone. 
It, too, must find its life when it gives itself to the service 
of all the nations. 

The Church is to set about this new task in the fol¬ 
lowing practical ways: In the preaching and educational 
program there must be a place for the definition and dis¬ 
cussion of the true international ideal until it becomes a 
part of the working mental capital of all Christian people. 
Millions of church members in America must see the great 
aim of international good will as it has been represented 
always in the teachings of Christianity and now has been 
put into practical effect by President Wilson. 

Christian men and women must talk about it more. 
How seldom we hear any sensible talk about international 
good will! We talk about the weather and our favorite 
movie star; but the great relations of the nations are 
seldom referred to. When they are, misunderstanding is 
likely to follow, as recently when the subject was men¬ 
tioned in a group of college men and the one who had 
spoken was immediately branded as an “I. W. W.” by a 
comrade. 

Discussion classes must be formed and the whole vast 
subject talked over in thorough fashion. It is as necessary 
as mission study; indeed, it is fundamental to it. 

In such ways the ideal would be gradually clarified in 
198 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV- 4 ] 

the minds of Christian people and would in time become a 
factor in the program of a working church. 

Fifteenth Week, Fourth Day: The Teachings of 
Jesus 

‘‘The embodiment in international relations of 
the spirit and teachings of Jesus is the great new 
task of the Church of Christ. All experience 
shows that his principles and spirit are complete 
and effective whenever and wherever they have 
been honestly tried.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 189. 

What is the chief resource by which the Christian 
churches are to perform the task which has just been de¬ 
fined? It is the teachings and the spirit of Jesus. “Not his 
words only; these are not enough; but the spirit in which 
the words were spoken and the motives which lay behind 
them as guiding power. The teachings alone might be¬ 
come a body of technical laws in time; they are saved from 
this by the spirit in which Jesus spoke and acted.” 

It is not difficult to define the essential elements in the 
words and spirit of Jesus Christ. He was sure of God as 
the Father and he regarded all men as brothers because 
they were the children of God. We have studied these two 
points in the chapter on Phillips Brooks as the preacher 
of international good will. 

Are we willing to make the application of these teach¬ 
ings and this spirit to the relations of the races and the 
nations? It must be admitted that they have been ap¬ 
plied only in part in this field. But the success of John 
Hay’s diplomacy is sufficient proof of the fact affirmed 
by the Pittsburgh Congress. 

Are we prepared now to encourage in every possible 
way the fuller application of the Master’s spirit and teach- 
199 


[XV-5] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ings to our international relations? No one of us can do 
this; but enough of us could’accomplish it. As the Con¬ 
gress itself affirmed: “Forty million professed Christians 
in America can make America’s international relations 
Christian, if they will.” 

But this means that all Christians shall think and talk 
and pray to make this program a definite goal on the part 
of our national leaders. For, whether they know it or not, j 
they will never succeed in bringing the nations of the 
world together until they do it in the spirit of Jesus Christ. 

Fifteenth Week, Fifth Day: Foreign Missions and 
Christian Politics 

“No church that has missionaries in Japan or 
China should feel that it is doing its full share in 
Christianizing those lands if it fails to cooperate 
in establishing Christian political relations with 
them.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 176. 

How wonderfully the idea of Christian missions has ex¬ 
panded in a century! The dream of a few young men, who 
burned with desire to pluck heathen brands from the burn¬ 
ing, has grown until the world-wide evangel of Christian¬ 
ity embraces all kinds of activity for the welfare of the 
non-Christian races and depends also upon the Christian 
political program at home. 

The missionaries themselves recognize the critical im¬ 
portance of the political ideal at home as it supports or 
retards their evangelizing work abroad. It is practically 
* impossible to make a suspicious people trust the religion 
of a tyrannizing race. If the missionary must be con¬ 
stantly explaining that the political policy of his nation is 
not due to their religion but is in spite of it, he has lost 
time, his plea is generally unconvincing, and he will lose 
his case in many instances. 


200 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV-6] 

The best example of this principle is undoubtedly the 
way in which the United States handled the indemnity for 
the losses and deaths for which China was held responsible 
in the Boxer rebellion. The money was justly awarded 
to the United States, and it might have been used honor¬ 
ably for our own purposes. Instead of doing this, however, 
our Government restored practically all of the indemnity 
to China, to be used for the higher education of its young 
men. The popular impression upon China, as a result of 
this Christian action, was immensely in favor of the whole 
message and program of Christian missions. The preacher 
in China was not forced to apologize for his nation, but 
could voice his appeal with the presuppositions favoring 
it from the outset. 

Fifteenth Week, Sixth Day: Evangelism and Uni¬ 
versal Good Will 

“Just as evangelism must reach out to all the 
world, so the kingdom of God, the Christian social 
order, includes all the world. It transcends, 
reconciles, and unites all nations and all races. 
God’s kingdom requires universal right relations.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 171. 

We generally sum up the idea of the extension of Chris¬ 
tianity under the single word, “evangelism.” By this we 
mean the carrying of the Christian message, program, and 
spirit into all the activities of human life. In our study 
yesterday we thought of the relation to a missionary’s 
success of the political policy of the nation that he repre¬ 
sents. Today we reflect upon a still broader principle, 
namely, that the final success of the Christian missionary 
enterprise depends upon universal right relations between 
all the nations of the world. And there can be no hope of 
the ultimate conquest of evangelism in its widest meaning 
unless it is backed by universal good will. 

201 


[XV-7] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

First, for the purpose of inspiration we must have the 
backing of universal good will to world-wide evangelism. 
While for a time it is possible to promote missions on the 
basis of pity for the miseries of heathenism, the full hope 
for the complete extension of the Christian religion 
throughout the world must rest in the ideal of the worth 
of humanity and its essential unity in the love of God. 
The gifts of money and life that are necessary to bring 
Christianity to the nations cannot be brought out by any 
smaller conception than this. 

Then this ideal of international good will is necessary 
as the testimony to evangelistic effort. We cannot preach 
a doctrine that is repudiated by our own people. Unless 
Christians in America believe and practice the truths 
that Jesus taught, we have no hope of carrying them to the 
nations of the world. 

And we must have this ideal for permanent support of 
the missionaries’ spirit. Dark days are bound to come 
while one is learning to “think black.” He who bears this 
burden must be able to feel that the friends back home 
• are “living white.” He must be able to refresh his spirit 
in the assurance that the truth he has come to present is 
valid because strong men at home are making good with 
it. Then he will lay his hand to his work with a new 
confidence and courage. 

Fifteenth Week, Seventh Day: Our Individual Task 

“Only the cooperation of tens of thousands of 
churches of all communions, and millions of in¬ 
telligent Christians will be able to Christianize 
America’s international relations and thus do their 
part in the great world enterprise.” 

—“Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 170. 

As one tries to think clearly concerning a task so great 
202 




THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV-7] 

as the one which we have studied, the apparent hopeless¬ 
ness of it is overwhelming. There is so much to be done, 
and there is so little that an individual or a church can 
do! The vast majority of people do not think seriously. 
It is often said: “Two things only occupy the minds of 
people today, the day’s job and the night’s amusement.” 
This is an extravagant statement; but it is too near the 
truth to make one feel comfortable. Thousands of Chris¬ 
tians never give any serious thought to those broader rela¬ 
tions between nations which ought to challenge their at¬ 
tention. 

Granted that this is the situation, what are the indi¬ 
vidual Christians and the single church to do? The 
Pittsburgh Congress recognized the cogency of this ques¬ 
tion and answered it by an appeal. Let every church 
and every Christian be faithful to the call for an interna¬ 
tional mind and the result will be a change in the public 
opinion of America. 

For, however elusive it may appear, there is such a 
thing as popular opinion and it is mighty beyond any power 
to estimate it. And this persuasive, compelling power is 
the creation of a great number of single minds and in¬ 
stitutions, each of which is standing for right ideas. 
Therefore, however slight the contribution may seem to 
be, popular opinion absolutely depends upon the loyalty 
of individuals to the highest ideals. “I am but one, but 
I can count one” is a most vital principle to be kept forever 
in mind. The great river depends upon thousands of 
springs and brooks to feed it. A noble national ideal can 
be created only by a vast number of persons who have de¬ 
fined life in their own minds, who can see the ideal of the 
kingdom of God, for which Jesus lived and died, and who 
dare to believe that even when war fills all the horizon 
with its smoke, there is another fact which is bound some¬ 
time to overcome it, the will for the good of all. 

203 


[XV-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 
Comment for the Week 

As we close our studies let us attempt to define a pro¬ 
gram according to which we may meet the demand of the 
situation in which we find ourselves. We simply cannot 
be content to let the meaning of the present hour go with¬ 
out a serious attempt to understand it. To be flippant or 
smug in the conditions under which we are living is im¬ 
possible. We can understand why Lieut. Coningsby Daw¬ 
son writes concerning his experiences in the trenches, 
“I think I am changed in some stern spiritual way— 
stripped of flabbiness.” After having been under shell 
fire, he wrote, “You know how I used to wonder what 
I’d do under such circumstances. Well, I laughed. All 
I could think of was the sleek people walking down Fifth 
Avenue and the equally sleek crowds taking tea at the 
Waldorf.” 2 The first clear fact that comes out of our 
study is that it is time to cast off fooling and to think 
and act as becomes men and women who know that they 
are on this earth for a serious purpose, where human life 
is charged with spiritual meaning. 

This means serious, clear, and profound thinking. It 
means that we shall read something outside the range of 
current fiction and the illustrated magazines. There is a 
body of interesting literature already at hand on the sub¬ 
ject, and books and pamphlets are constantly appearing. 
Such a little volume as “The International Mind,” by 
President Nicholas Murray Butler, gives anyone a start 
which will stimulate the powers of thought and feeling. 
We must also do our own thinking on the subject; and that 
is not so easy as it sounds. It is harder work to think than 
it is to plow corn or wash clothes. Of course, one can 
day-dream and dawdle in the presence of bright and 
quickening ideas and sentiments; but to grapple with the 


* “Carry On,” pp. 68, 63. 


204 



THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV-c] 

real question of international good will and the universal 
aspects of the Christian religion is a task that produces 
at first either exhaustion or the condition indicated by the 
Patagonian chief when he said, “Great ideas make me 
very sleepy.” We need a thorough and fearless spirit of 
honesty as we face the full meaning of the world. 

It also means that we keep our emotions free from con¬ 
tempt and hatred, open-hearted and sympathetic. The 
Pittsburgh Congress understood the importance of the 
right emotional reaction to the world situation when it 
affirmed: 

“All photo-plays arousing race prejudice or international 
hostility should be condemned by state and city boards of 
censors. This is as important as condemnation of photo¬ 
plays that are sexually immoral.” 3 

This does not apply, of course, to such pictures as may 
be necessary at times to exhibit the practices in war that 
are sanctioned by a nation that has been brutalized. But 
there are other photo-plays and there are single factors 
in many plays which so over-emphasize the unfortunate 
characteristics of other races as constantly to disparage 
them in the eyes of those who ought to be their friends 
and helpers. The Jews, for example, are subject to con¬ 
stant caricature and their worse rather than their better 
characteristics are thrust forward. Quite unconsciously 
we permit ourselves to be prejudiced before we sense the 
danger. It is the right and courageous course simply to 
refuse to see these plays that are produced in the inter¬ 
ests of international misunderstanding. 

Still more definite and practical is that Christian course 
of action by which we undertake to do something personal 
and specific to express our international good will to the 


*“ Manual of Inter-Church Work,” p. 189. 

205 



[XV-c] ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY 

foreign-speaking people who may now be found in even our 
smaller communities. They are strangers to our language, 
traditions, and customs. They herd together naturally. 
They have been so exploited and oppressed in the old 
country that they are suspicious of strangers, however 
honest or friendly the approach. This makes it difficult 
to know and befriend them. The task is all the more 
necessary and rewarding, however. There is scarcely an 
American community in which there is not imperative 
need of a group of thoughtful, friendly, and patient “medi¬ 
ators,” who will stand between the old-world immigrants 
and their new-world home, with true sympathy and friend¬ 
liness. Many a college man and woman who never has 
been sensitive to the call of the “foreign field,” and so has 
not joined the Student Volunteer Band, is called to go 
back to the home town and be the personal friend and 
interpreter to some confused and lonely immigrant or to a 
group of such needy strangers. Perhaps the very best 
place in which we can express our international vision and 
sympathy is through personal friendliness with a young 
Jew or the leadership of a sewing class for Slovak chil¬ 
dren. The foreign mission field has been suddenly trans¬ 
ferred to our own block and back yard; the names which 
we have not been able to pronounce are represented in the 
casualty lists of the armies in France. 

But the final item in the personal program for the real¬ 
ization of international good will is the determination to 
see all the world and work for it as Jesus of Nazareth did. 
He was never confused about what life meant and what his 
own purpose was. This we went into carefully at the be¬ 
ginning of these studies and to this truth we return at the 
close. All the expressions of the universal aspects of 
Christianity which have appeared in so many forms are 
only diversified expressions of the ideal held with such 
“sweet reasonableness” by Jesus Christ. And we must 

206 





THE VOICE OF THE CHURCHES [XV-c] 

be as clear and determined about it in our own daily liv¬ 
ing as Jesus was. 

The kingdom of God will come when millions of young 
men and women see the world through the eyes of the 
Young Man of Nazareth and then work as he did to make 
the dream come true. Let us renew our conception of 
the way in which Jesus thought of the world. It was 
the sphere where God the Father was at work to bring 
his will to accomplishment as it is gladly fulfilled in 
heaven. There is no clearer or more concrete expression 
of this than the familiar words, “Thy kingdom come; thy 
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But this can¬ 
not be accomplished without the work of countless human 
hands. So the program of Jesus is a call to service, in 
which we must follow him. It cannot be done quickly. 
How long the world has lasted since Jesus taught men to 
yearn for the kingdom! And sometimes it seems as if it 
never would come. Hope deferred still maketh the heart 
sick. But there are more persons devoted to the ideal of 
the kingdom today than ever before. Never were so many 
thinking and acting in the spirit of international kind¬ 
ness. Mutual aid rather than selfish struggle is becoming 
the law of life. In spite of many obstacles and much 
bitter struggle, the ideal of Jesus makes headway. 

It is bound to conquer because it is true. The ideal of 
Jesus is in league with the conquering energies of God. 
Do we want to be on the side of the victorious forces? 
All noble spirits do. Then we must line up with Christ in 
his program for world brotherhood. To accept any other 
interpretation of life as our working theory is to go hope¬ 
lessly wrong. We can afford to wait in patience when we 
know that we are right. It is only the man lined up with 
the wrong cause who has any warrant for despair. The 
final verdict will be that the victory is Jesus Christ’s. 


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